Billy, Lew and something new.

Studio publicity portrait of the American actor Paul Newman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After some fish and chips, Friday turned from games day to film night at the "Rooftrouser Rialto" and Arthur arrived with the now traditional Melton Mowbray pie and a couple of bottles of Shepherd Neame's Spitfire. He also had a large number of DVDs mostly of Paul Newman's oeuvre.

BEWARE POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

We settled on another of his Lew Harper private eye films: The Drowning Pool (1975). This time Harper heads down to the deep South to help out an old flame (Mrs Newman - Joanne Woodward). Almost as soon as he arrives he is in trouble, being arrested for a range of crimes from statutory rape to carrying a concealed weapon. Most of these he is innocent of, having been set up by a young girl played by Melanie Griffiths whose identity we, and Harper, shortly discover to be very significant. I won't try and explain the plot mainly because after it finished it transpired that neither of us had fully understood all of its complications. As I often finds with such stories, that is not of huge importance as long as the characters and dialogue are good. Well, you can't go far wrong with Paul Newman can you? It was engrossing and full of enjoyable performances from the ladies and the "baddies". I was none too sure of Tony Franciosa's southern accent but perhaps its just that I'm not used to him talking like that. He played the cop who was somewhat more sympathetic than Franks (Richard Jaeckel) who arrested Harper in the beginning and continued to be a thorn in his side. Broussard (Franciosa) was to turn out to have more involvement in the case than was at first clear...and caused me more confusion at the end. Very enjoyable anyway and I'd be happy to continue with the Newman season for a while.

In the intermission there was a new feature as the "Rialto" played a CD of "Mighty Wurlitzer" music and some period Pearl and Dean advertisements for the authentic old cinema flavour. The other new aspect was the addition (thanks to the generosity of my gaming friend "Crabro") of a second-hand media centre based on Windows XP which enables not only DVD recording and playing (which have been somewhat erratic of late as my old DVD recorder is in its death throes.) but also the possibility of streaming content from the internet. As Arthur arrived, the Rialto was in fact showing YouTube video of an old acquaintance from my college days who is (and was even then) an excellent guitarist.

Meanwhile I served up the pie and beer and we decided on the second feature:
more Newman.

The Left Handed Gun (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

This time it was a younger Paul in "The Left-Handed Gun" from 1958 which is a fairly straight re-telling of the story of "Billy the Kid" (aka William Bonney aka William Henry McCarty aka Henry Antrim aka Kid Antrim) who, despite being known to have killed a number of people, is something of a folk-hero. The plot seemed to follow pretty closely the familiar aspects of the legend if not the actual facts of the case, while glossing over the complexities of the bloody "Lincoln County War" and the actions of the "regulators" and probably exaggerating the relationship with Sheriff Garrett.

Sheriff Pat Garrett (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Baby-faced blue-eyed Newman made a good Billy Bonney giving us enough complexity to make him interesting if not entirely sympathetic. In fact Bonney's nemesis Pat Garrett is perhaps treated with a bit more sympathy than usual (even at the time he was condemned for what was perceived as an underhanded killing and later wrote a book to put his side) and while Billy's motivations are shown to be fairly laudable at the start (revenge for the unjust murder of his unarmed boss and father figure Mr Tunstall) this is allowed to be strained at times. Tunstall as portrayed here presents a sympathetic but odd figure. He is supposed to be English and indeed the historic Tunstall was an Englishman while his rivals were of Irish descent, he appears to be putting on some kind of accent however and at one point is described as from "Ayrshire". All the more strange because the actor Colin Keith-Johnston was born in London (a mere fifteen years after the Kid's death in fact).

Old Lincoln County Courthouse and Jail, where Billy the Kid was tried (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mention is made of the notorious amnesty offered to the protagonists of the "Lincoln County War", including Billy, by civil war-veteran New Mexico governor Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur) but he is not condemned for reneging on it as he often is and Billy (or rather one of his cohorts) is shown as breaking the terms of the amnesty. In reality this is still controversial and in recent years supporters of Billy have pushed for a posthumous amnesty, opposed by descendants of Wallace and Garrett amongst others. This claim was turned down by the then governor of New Mexico as recently as 2010.

A grave marker indicating that the deceased was killed by Billy the Kid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am very interested in both the myth and the history of the brief period of the "Wild West" so I was fascinated to see this spare re-telling of a classic western legend. As always one is in safe hands with Newman though perhaps his later portrayals have more depth. I enjoyed seeing John Dehner's portrayal of Pat Garrett too. Sometimes vilified as a friend-killer and as is Jesse James' nemesis "that coward" Robert Ford, and popularly supposed to have bushwhacked Bonney in darkness and then having been to afraid to veryify who he had shot, here Garrett is shown to have reason to try to stop Billy and even then to take him alive before being tricked into believing him to be armed as he shot him.

Billy the Kid. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Incidentally the title is probably erroneous. At one point in the film Billy is shown as posing for a photographer and indeed this photo (or rather Ferrotype) still exists and changed hands last year for 2.3 million dollars. It would appear that this image is reversed which has given rise to the assumption that the Kid was left-handed. The detail would appear to make it clear that Billy was right-handed (or possibly ambidextrous as one acquaintance maintained) and probably not a quick-draw specialist, perhaps using the "Winchester '73" he is holding, as his main weapon.

Not that any of that detail detracts from an enjoyable re-telling of the essentially fictional legend of Billy the Kid. I just find it rather interesting...and I'm sure the Kid, often characterised as having a good sense of humour, would be amused that his likeness could command millions of dollars.

Billy the Kid (1860 – 1881). Image mirrored on vertical axis to correct widely-seen flopped tintype. Cartridge loading gate on Winchester Model 1873 lever action rifle is on the right side of the receiver. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was most happy with another excellent programme and the Rialto looks forward to welcoming Arthur's next pie, beer and Newman extravaganza.