1973 - PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, Peckinpah's eulogy for the western film

Sam Peckinpah directed yet another one of those "end of the west films" which puts him in good company with John Ford. Don Siegel, Sergio Leone and George Roy Hill.  Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is about the friendship of Garrett and the Kid.  As the frontier ends and civilization i.e. corporate greed takes over Garrett chooses to take the side of corporate interests at the expense of getting rid of his outlaw friend

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid was a difficult production for Peckinpah.  Peckinpah's alcoholism, production overruns and a very hostile relationship with the failing MGM studios resulted in Peckinpah losing control over the final cut of the film.  The history of this film gets even more complicated as the film actually exists in three different versions.  The studio cut, Peckinpah's preview cut and finally a cut that assembled scenes from the studio cut and the preview cut which is called the special edition cut. Confused yet?

 

Peckinpah hired a cast of performers that he had worked with in the past. It's almost a curtain call of western actors,  James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Slim Pickens, Richard Jaeckel, Chill Wills, Barry Sullivan, Katie Jurado, Jack Elam, R. G. Armstrong and in some really offbeat casting Bob Dylan. Dylan wrote the score for the film which really displeased Peckinpah.  Peckinpah himself shows up as what else, an undertaker towards the end of the film.

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid's reedited versions are now considered something of a masterpiece.  No question Peckinpah has a great feeling for western landscape.  He's also good with his actors and no one can photograph gunfights like him.  However I though  this film was very choppy and disjointed as the story moved from scene to scene.  I think you can blame this on Peckinpah's tampering with Rudy Wurlitzer's original script.  

In general Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is a good film but it is probably of greater interest to fans of the director.  

The film was written by Rudy Wurlitizer with uncredited rewriting from Sam Peckinpah, the running time is 115 minutes.