The Left Handed Gun (1958)

There is something of the original Chisum story to this western as William Bonney - aka “Billy the Kid” (Paul Newman) is hired by the decent Tunstall (Colin Keith-Johnson) to herd his cattle to Lincoln where it is to be used to feed the troops. The sheriff “Brady” (Robert Foulk) and three of his deputies have other plans and so they kill the unarmed Briton and steal his cows. When he finds out, Bonney is livid and swears vengeance on the murderers. To that end, he must cross his friend Pat Garrett (John Dehner) and with his pals Tom (James Best) and Charlie (James Congdon) sets about killing the sheriff and thereby causing no end of trouble for just about everyone. After a shoot-out and ensuing conflagration, everyone assumes he has been roasted but we know that he has fled to Mexico where he is awaiting the right time to strike against the surviving deputies. Bonney is no brute though, he carefully sets up his scenarios so that his targets have an opportunity to draw before he outclasses them - but do two wrongs really make a right? To be honest, I found this all a bit hit and miss. Newman has moments when his confidence simply overwhelms the vulnerability that this attempts to characterise Bonney with, and there’s a great deal of dialogue that does render this a bit sluggish at times, especially at the start. There is a solid supporting cast from the likes of Hurd Hatfield - whose storyline comes with it’s own particular sub-plot; Lita Milan plays adequately as his latter-day love interest “Celisa” and Denver Pyle, but this cross-over between the psychological and the traditional just didn’t catch fire for me. It is worth a watch, but it isn’t quite the sum of it’s parts.

The demythologised account of Billy The Kid. Billy Bonney is taken in by kindly rancher John Tunstall, he starts to learn respect and education, but then Tunstall is cruelly murdered. Bonney having been robbed of the one man he respected, shows his darker side and vows to seek revenge on Tunstall's killers. This was director Arthur Penn's debut feature film, and all the traits that were to mark his name in future pictures can be found in this very good, and troubling psychological western. Based upon a teleplay by Gore Vidal entitled The Death Of Billy The Kid, Penn ensures that any notions of William Bonney being a hero are well and truly vanquished with this damning portrayal of the legendary outlaw. That this point is rammed home is down to a quite wonderful performance from Paul Newman as Bonney, boyish ignorance and sadistic tendencies making odd bed fellows as Newman plays it weirdly perfect (the role had been earmarked for James Dean until his untimely death curtailed that happening). Backing Newman up is a fine performance from John Dehner as eventual nemesis of Bonney, Pat Garrett, showing nice touches of emotion from both sides of the coin. The rest of the cast do OK and nobody either harms or enhances the picture. This really is about its director and its leading man, both would go on to greater things, but this is a fine point of reference in their respective careers, a picture that both men can be rightly proud of. 7/10