The Left-Handed Gun

William Henry McCarty, Jr. aka:  William Bonney, aka:  Billy the Kid (1880)

THE LEFT-HANDED GUN      C+                

USA  (102 mi)  1958  d:  Arthur Penn

A society has its mirror in its outcasts.           —Arthur Penn

A romanticized and sympathetic portrayal of one of American’s iconic outlaws, William Henry McCarty, Jr. aka:  William Bonney, aka:  Billy the Kid, whose legend has been lionized into mythical status through exaggerated newspaper accounts and dime store novels, becoming one of the great figures of the American West.   While there are more than a dozen movie versions of his story, most are fairly second rate accounts of his life, where even the title of this film has been discounted as myth, suggesting the real Billy the Kid was right-handed, but for nearly a century wrongly thought of as left-handed from an archival photograph that was originally viewed through a reversed mirror image.  More interesting accounts of the Kid's story both come from the same source, The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, a 1956 novel by Charles Neider, used in both Brando’s ONE EYED JACKS (1961) and Sam Peckinpah’s PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973), where Peckinpah actually worked as one of the screenwriters on Brando’s film.  Both of those films use a more naturalistic style, though in Brando’s film, he’s hunted down by a maniacal lawman seeking public glorification by killing a notorious outlaw, while in Peckinpah’s he’s regrettably shot down by his best friend, initially seen as an act of revenge for breaking out of jail, but eventually seen as a hollow and meaningless act.  This film, written by Gore Vidal, was originally a 1955 made-for TV movie called The Death of Billy the Kid, expanded by screenwriter Leslie Stevens for a feature length film, using the same lead actor in each, Paul Newman.  Penn’s account turns the Kid into a martyr figure, a common portrait seen throughout Newman’s storied career, especially during the 60’s, THE HUSTLER (1961), HOMBRE (1967), and COOL HAND LUKE (1967).

This is Arthur Penn’s first film, made than a decade before his most infamous outlaw movie, BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), where one common factor in each is the director’s love for outsiderism and actor Denver Pyle, depicted as a bellicose lawman in each.  Newman’s acting is overly theatrical, typical of the times, where there wasn’t much difference between the histrionics and largesse of stage performances and those before a movie camera.  It was largely the 60’s influence of European films and Jack Nicholson whose understated portrayal in FIVE EASY PIECES (1970) altered the standard, though the existential realism of the Penn performances in MICKY ONE (1965) and BONNIE AND CLYDE certainly helped pave the way.  Newman’s role was originally scripted for James Dean, where the misunderstood feelings of alienation and personal torment are present, where it’s clear the character is curious, but illiterate and uneducated, where from the outset he seems to be lost (wandering without a horse), aimlessly running away from his difficult past.  He hooks up with a cattle drive on their way to Lincoln, becoming something of a hot-headed boy apprentice to his gentleman boss, Tunstall (Colin Keith-Johnston), known as "The Englishman," who affectionately takes him under his wing.  When a crooked sheriff shoots the unarmed Tunstall down in cold blood, the Kid vows revenge, soon joined by two partners in crime, Charlie (James Congdon) and Tom (James Best), though when together, these boys act like mere adolescents.  It’s the speed of the Kid’s gun that brings them quick notoriety, killing the sheriff and one of his partners, quickly idealized in pulp novels that became instant best sellers.  Relatively unknown during his lifetime, his legendary reputation, whose exploits were exaggerated after his death, turned him into a folk hero.   

Like Truffaut’s THE BRIDE WORE BLACK (1968), the Kid has no rest until he can gun down the other two that still remain at-large who were involved with Tunstall’s murder. There are certain story elements that simply get lost, like what happened to all the cattle, as we never see them again, or who became the next sheriff, as we see several men wearing badges afterwards.  Instead, the Kid and his two partners recuperate from injuries and hang out in Mexico where they meet Pat Garrett (John Dehner), another former outlaw who is attempting to settle down there and even get married, where he makes the Kid steadfastly promise there’ll be no trouble at the wedding.  But when he violates that pledge, creating a bloody disturbance on the street, causing mayhem on his wedding day, Garrett grows furious, reverses the roles and vows to hunt the Kid down.  This back and forth of outlaw justice, inseparable from the supposed court appointed civilized justice, creates a moral vacuum, where justice prevails only at the end of a gun.  In an attempt to make the Kid a sympathetic character, he never initiates any of the action, but is always seen as personally trying to implement that non-existent justice of the land, as otherwise the real killers get away scot free.  But in his obsession to carry out this revengeful deed, he loses sight of the world around him, where he interferes with larger political implications, such as the Lincoln County War, a lengthy feud of Kid-included gunfighter killings which instead get confusingly lost and fictionalized in this movie version.  While the director oversimplifies Christian metaphors, such as a man dying with his arms outstretched in the form of a cross, or using a newspaperman as a betraying Judas, the film is at least an attempt to break away from the reliance upon Western myths and misconceptions, but in doing so creates an overly contrived, black and white moral universe where the Kid’s humanity-at-all-costs approach supersedes authenticity or any effort at uncovering the real truth.