Billy the Kid (1941)
I was expecting more from Billy the Kid (1941) with Robert Taylor playing the strong arrogant lead of Billy the Kid, the last gunman of the West to be tamed by the law. However for its length you can only focus on one or two events his life, and sewed up nicely in just over an hour. I find that the later Peckinpah version Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) that saw the demise, although still inaccurate, paints a more realistic version of the events that lead to his demise. William Bonney/Mcarty/Billy the Kid’s time in Lincoln County is more or less accurate, but still blurred by the needs of entertainment. Maybe I’m aiming for more fact in my films that I watch, still that will be very unlikely to happen unless I’m in the lucky position to make it happen.
The film was saved by the influence of John Ford‘s use of Monument Valley, we don’t have the same grace of the landscape, yet falls short. It’s still another chance to be lost in the great landscape that made the Western an attractive genre.
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