This is an early sound western from one of the legendary silent film directors, King Vidor. Billy the Kid was filmed in 70 mm and in 35 mm. Unfortunately no 70mm print seems to exist so film buffs will just have to live with the 35 mm version.
The film had extensive location photography in Utah, New Mexico and the Grand Canyon so you can get somewhat of a feel for the landscape even if it is only in 35mm. Vidor directed a couple of good action scenes and when the film is outdoors it's visually fairly impressive to look at. As with all early "talkie" films the acting and dialog is kind of shall we say stilted. It would take a few more years for sound recording to improve and for actors and writers to develop a new understated way of writing dialog and performing.
Unsurprisingly this is not the true story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Hollywood has been spinning fantasy's about their story for almost as long as there has been movies. Still for an old movie King Vidor did a fairly good job with the story, it must have been a challenge dealing with sound cameras on these western locations.
The film was written by Laurence Stallings and Charles MacArthur, the running time is 95 minutes.
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