Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid
One of the most disgraceful episodes in the annals of American history is that of The Lincoln County Cattle War Of 1878, ostensibly a conflict between the two top cattle ranchers in New Mexico, John Chisum and Lawrence Murphy for full undisputed control of the lucrative beef and livestock market. Murphy would strike first, sending henchmen out to mercilessly slaughter John Tunstall (Chisum’s partner in the region) and later orchestrating the even more brutal murder of another partner in Alex McSween during an unprovoked raid on his home. But Chisum would have himself a secret weapon: William H. Bonney (Billy The Kid), a young protégé of Tunstall’s whom along with his team of Regulators, were formally deputized and tasked with serving warrants to arrest Murphy’s henchmen in order to bring Murphy himself to justice. But The Kid had other plans: On the pretense of avenging Tunstall’s murder, The Kid would go on a vigilante murder spree of unheard of proportions, wiping out most of Murphy’s crew and in turn driving Murphy out of the territory for good. In doing so, Billy The Kid would become a national sensation for his time, a literal celebrity who became a household name to anyone who could read a newspaper and a beloved figure among the poor and destitute locals of New Mexico. But when Murphy’s remaining partners worked out a peace accord with Chisum, the conditions not only included turning over most of Murphy’s remaining assets to him (thus consolidating Chisum’s power and making him stronger than ever), they also stipulated that Chisum assist with driving out of the territory (or if necessary, killing) the one man who had singlehandedly won the war for Chisum, a proposal that Chisum had taken little issue with since now that the war was over, The Kid had transformed into being a serious threat to the status quo, taking on a folk hero stature all while being in a position where there was no way that he could actually be controlled in any fashion whatsoever, a man of the people who potentially could initiate another, far more damaging war (possibly even a second civil war which would then see rich vs poor). For that purpose, the powers that be would bring in Pat Garrett (a drifter with a shady past) to be the new Sheriff and directly assign to him the task of hunting down The Kid, which he succeeded in doing on July 14, 1881, shooting down Bonney in what is perhaps the single most important historical event of The 1800s besides The Lincoln Assassination. The question remains to this day as to whether Garrett had any sort of actual friendship with The Kid prior to being made Sheriff (which may explain why he was given the job in the first place) with no solid proof to show that to be the case but nonetheless historians continue to debate about to this day. Most people know of much of this from 1988’s Young Guns, a fairly factual (with a bit of fictional relish) account of The Kid’s involvement in the Lincoln County War which was followed up by Young Guns 2, depicting the conflict between Garrett and Billy including heavily playing up their supposed friendship. As irony would have it, Young Guns 2 was both a sequel AND a remake, the original which it took after being this 1973 release by the late but highly lauded madman director Sam Peckinpah, who had already done The Wild Bunch but arguably made a better and more compelling Western here, taking his two main characters and pouring on plenty of allegorical elements to explore the various facets of human nature that they come to represent. Even more astounding was the reportedly war zone nature of the shoot, with everything from having a third of the completed footage being ruined and unusable requiring it to be reshot on the fly to Peckinpah’s own deterioration from his excessive alcoholism all the way to the point where he was said to be coherent on the set for only about four hours a day. Worse, the studio bosses did everything they could to sabotage the production (wanting a more “straightforward” final product) which included turning Peckinpah’s own producers against him and then pitifully butchering the film taking out many of the best pieces of writing and acting, a process that continues to this day with an unsatisfactory 50th anniversary cut, while any truly discerning fan of the film can watch either the “Final Preview Version” or the “88 Turner Cut” to appreciate the greatness that this movie manages to attain. Casting is everything here, brilliantly giving us James Coburn (who also went on to play Chisum in Guns 2) as Garrett and Kris Kristofferson (34 at the time but still pitch perfect as the charismatic 21 year old Kid) as Billy. Unlike Guns 2 which literally featured a scene of the two friends playfighting like idiots, this film opens with Garrett riding right into Billy’s homebase of Fort Sumner and not only telling him straight up about his ascension to being Sheriff, but also asking him as a friend to please leave the territory so that Chisum can have a few less sleepless nights. But that is where the conflict becomes clear: Garrett feels that taking on the badge with the big money cattle barons backing him up can only ensure his long term survival, in essence switching sides so that he can stay alive. But The Kid is different: literally intoxicated with the adulation he receives from the common people, he has come to believe that those same people will now have HIS back come thick or thin, not fully realizing that everything he represents will indeed die with him and him alone as his following will then scatter to the wind, remembering him for being a famous outlaw but little else. The brilliance and audacity of the film is actually in how it depicts Coburn’s Garrett being more than just merely deliberate in his pursuit of Bonney, choosing not to go straight at him (when he knows damn well where he is most of the time), but instead extending Billy the courtesy of having enough time to leave the territory of his own choice (even as the whole movie still remains compelling from one scene to the next), something which Billy nearly does at one point before deciding to turn back because without him the people would be rendered helpless in Chisum’s tyrannical grip. Meanwhile, Garrett occupies his time hunting down and taking out several of Billy’s friends (a number of whom are old friends of his as well) on the hope that Billy will finally get the message and get the hell out of there for his own good instead of forcing Garrett to finally do the job that he was paid to do. Does this make Garrett a Judas of sorts? The answer to that would be a solid maybe, but the reason why The Kid’s death at the hands of Garrett was so significant was that it finally allowed the establishment to get a foothold in the American Southwest and continue the overall expansion of the country itself, whereas The Kid would probably have preferred the more anarchy tinged atmosphere of the Lincoln County War provided that he was looked upon as being either a King or a deity in that type of environment. Besides the more than able lead performances of Coburn and Kristofferson, the film boasts arguably the most purely Western supporting cast in history, an amazing roster which includes Richard Jaeckel, Katy Jurado, Chill Wills, Barry Sullivan (as Chisum), Jason Robards, R.G. Armstrong, Luke Askew, John Beck, Richard Bright, Matt Clark, Rita Coolidge (Kristofferson’s wife at the time who here plays the town virgin with an eye on Billy), Jack Elam, Emilio Fernandez, L.Q. Jones, Slim Pickens, Charles Martin Smith, Harry Dean Stanton, Rutanya Alda, Elisha Cook Jr., Gene Evans, Dub Taylor and the most fascinating casting decision of them all: music legend Bob Dylan as “Alias”, a soft spoken young man who decides on a whim to ride into Fort Sumner and join The Kid’s “movement”, instead becoming a witness to history when Garrett finally rides in later on. Dylan would also compose the film’s soundtrack (including the music industry standard bearer classic Knockin On Heaven’s Door) which adds a coolness level to the film that just cannot be matched (although Jon Bon Jovi tried with Guns 2). The film’s thematic elements of doing what must be done to bring a sense of order out of what once was chaos (but not necessarily justice) even if it means betraying those who have known and trusted you for years is surprisingly still potent today, especially in the sense of how Peckinpah bookends the film with Garrett’s own death many years later, an ambush that seemed to have come out of a business dispute with the same people who had originally hired him to kill The Kid and whom now had finally found a reason to dispose of him also when he had outlived his usefulness, a metaphor in many ways for selling out your soul only to pay a price which you had never expected to, which is what makes this one of the greatest of all Westerns, a meditation on human frailty of which the depth and meaning goes even beyond that of the real life story of these two iconic figures…
10/10