MOVIECLUB #5 - Due Monday 5/25: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)


Recommended Double-Feature: The Wild Bunch (1969)

More Suggestions:
Chisum (1979)
Young Guns I & II (1988 & 1990)
Straw Dogs (1971)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
The Getaway (1972)
Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid (1989)
The Outlaw (1943)
Billy the Kid (1941)
Billy the Kid (1930)


edit: okay, got carried away with these suggestions.. narrowed it a bit

edit #2: changed the recommended double-feature from Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia to The Wild Bunch.. retooled the rest of the suggestions like a damn commie revisionist

More Double Feature Suggestions:

Ride The High Country (Peckinpah's first foray into western)
The Ballad Of Cable Hogue (Peckinpah's film before this one)
The Killer Elite (Peckinpah and Coburn)
The Osterman Weekend (both directed by Peckinpah and both were heavily recut by the studio)

I'm pretty underwhelmed by this film, to be honest. Peckinpah was always about the rawness of his films, the immediacy. This film was an attempt to be mroe lyrical and it just came off as insignificant. Good soundtrack though.

I've been a more passive member of the 'Movie Club' because at this point I've more just been voting than watching ('Alice' got me off to a bad start). There are two main versions of the film on dvd: One that was put together by Turner Classics in 1988 and one that was put together by Peckinpah scholars in 2005. Do we have a preference in which version we'll be watching?

Wiki sez:

Controversy Over Post-Production

By the time Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was in the editing room, Peckinpah's relationship with the studio and his own producers had reached the breaking point. Aubrey, enraged by the cost and production overruns, demanded the film for an unrealistic release date. Peckinpah and his editors were forced into a desperate situation in order to finish on time. Furthermore, Aubrey still objected to several sequences in the film which he wanted removed, forcing Peckinpah to engage in protracted negotiations over the film's content. Adding to the problems, Bob Dylan had never done a feature film score before and Peckinpah's usual composer, Jerry Fielding, was unhappy with being relegated to a minor role in the scoring process.

Peckinpah did complete a director's cut of the film, which was shown to critics on at least one occasion. Martin Scorsese, who had just made Mean Streets (1973), was at the screening, and praised the film as Peckinpah's greatest since The Wild Bunch.

This version, however, would not see the light of day for over ten years. Peckinpah was eventually forced out of the production and Aubrey had the film severely cut from 124 to 106 minutes, resulting in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid being released in a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members. This version was a box-office failure and was panned by most major critics, who had harbored high expectations for the director's first Western since The Wild Bunch.

The film remained something of an enigma for the next decade, with rumors flying about other versions and the nature of what had been left out of the release version. Peckinpah himself was in possession of his own director's cut, which he often showed to friends as his own definitive vision of the film.

Rediscovery

In 1988, Turner Home Entertainment, with distribution by MGM, released Peckinpah's director's cut of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid on video and laser disc. This version led to a rediscovery and reevaluation of the film, with many critics praising it as a lost masterpiece and proof of Peckinpah's vision as a filmmaker at this time. The film's reputation has grown substantially since this version was released, and the film has come to be regarded as something of a modern classic, equal in many ways to Peckinpah's earlier films.

In 2005, a DVD of the film distributed by Warner Brothers was released containing the director's cut as well as a new special edition which combined elements of the theatrical version, the director's cut and several new scenes left out of both versions. This third version of the film runs slightly shorter than the director's cut.

okay, so from what i can tell, everybody in the world has disowned the original theatrical print--which, evidently, the studio (or "THE MACHINE!!! OMG" as Boosh calls it) totally interfered with to the point of rendering it unwatchable.. so i guess we can leave that one out of the running.. doesn't matter though, because Netflix only provides the '88 "Director's Cut" and the '05 "Special Edition."

The "Special Edition" seems to have good intentions behind it--but the director, Sam Peckinpah, wasn't alive to be a part of the reconstruction.. this fact alone makes me want to dismiss this version of the movie altogether... nonetheless, a lot of research went into the recreation and (after poking around a bit), it looks like some people actually consider this the definitive film..

to me, though, the '05 update is a revisionist work--making it unauthentic.. no matter how good it is, it's the equivalent of somebody going back and retooling Star Wars--wait, did that already happen? i'll be watching the '88 "Director's Cut".. if anyone watches the "Special Edition," give us some feedback..

if anybody on the board is already familiar with the two versions, chime in now!! i'm mostly just speculating here, so a more informed opinion would be helpful

Why don't you guys try and watch both versions? Wouldn't that make sense, and then determine which you think is better

geezer9687 wrote:Why don't you guys try and watch both versions? Wouldn't that make sense, and then determine which you think is better

don't be ridiculous. i'm a busy man! .... i have, you know, movies to watch....and such

Ok,

I spent the afternoon watching the 2005 version and the documentaries attached with it. Also listened to part of the commentary. In a nutshell, their explanation is that, contractually, Peckinpah obligated to assemble a cut of the film within 10 weeks or the studio would assemble their own cut of it (which they did anyway). Peckinpah completed the cut but left detailed notes for what he wanted the cut to actually be like -- he just ran out of time to finesse it. The 1988 cut has a number of scenes which linger after natural cuts should have been made. 2005 makes these cuts and tries to make the film flow more naturally.

It still has problems and the film is prone to being episodic. I'll try to give the '88 version a watch over the weekend to let you know which I preferred. The '05 is an 8/10 for me.

Oh, if you want comparison pieces for this one, I'd say either 'Chisum' with John Wayne (which distorts the background but gives you the back story) or 'Young Guns' (which distorts everything but does give you a different slant on Peckinpah's take of things). 'PG & BtK' is the best version of the three though.

thanks for the heads up, Roody.. definitely let us know if you get around to (re)watching the '88 cut.

i made a last minute change to the thread: i replaced Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia with the Wild Bunch as the recommended double-feature.. i also reorganized the "more suggestions" section to focus on Chisum and Young Guns.. (Boosh's suggestions are still notable as the very first reply in this thread)

maybe Alfredo Garcia will get his own shot as a Movie Club pick in the future.. if it happens, i'm pairing it up with The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.. i think the two compliment each other very well..

I'm going to watch it tomorrow morning so I'll have an answer for you then. 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia'... that's one of those ones that Roger Ebert gave four stars and everyone else hated. It's a challenging film but it'd be nice to hear everyone's thoughts on it too at some point.

Now this is going to be a personal challenge. Not only a classic, but a Western as well. I went to the Michael Bay film school growing up!

A_Roode wrote:I'm going to watch it tomorrow morning so I'll have an answer for you then. 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia'... that's one of those ones that Roger Ebert gave four stars and everyone else hated. It's a challenging film but it'd be nice to hear everyone's thoughts on it too at some point.

I actually like the film too. It's no classic but what I liked about it, and it's something you saw a lot in the 70's, was the sense of consequence that came with violence and murder. Killing isn't easy, and you can't walk away, and Alfredo Garcia is brimming with that idea.

I thought the film was good but not quite good enough. The acting was solid and I even enjoyed Bob Dylan's character even though he seemed to serve no purpose. Some of the dialogue reminded me of QT's style, raw, and interesting, but not really vital to the plot. That is neither a good nor a bad thing, just an observation.

As a Peckinpah film, it was definitely not as good as I am used to. But when you have made the Wild Bunch, you have to try pretty damned hard to keep that pace up. I did notice the Peckinpah signature bright red blood sprays several times. Always fun to catch those.

Christopherson put in a good performance as usual. He played the role with the exact amount of cockiness and spunk. I believed that he could be the Kid even though he was quite a bit older than the character.

Overall I liked it but it wasn't nearly in my top 20 westerns.

I see Bob Dylan turned 68 today. Pure coincidence or is NSpan a mad genius?

Door number two methinks.

You pretty much summed up my feelings for the film, Donte.

i saw The Wild Bunch for the first time.. Not sure why I hadn't even checked this out before.. I think I always just assumed that it was a cliched 60's happy-go-lucky Western where the good guy is in white, the bad guy is in black, and everybody lives happily ever after without a drop of visible blood being spilled in the process (think: a mediocre John Wayne movie)..

man, was i wrong.. considering my expectations, this movie was hardcore.. i should've known--having seen Alfredo Garcia.. relative to its peers, The Wild Bunch strives for (and achieves) a gritty sense of realism..

perfect casting all around.. truly impressive action sequences (even if they're a tiny bit dated now).. this movie's influence is all over every western made since (oddly enough, i think The Three Amigos borrows from it most of all--despite it being a parody of the Magnificent Seven).. i watched the re-release version.. it looked (and sounded) great.. my only criticism, though, is that I feel like the movie could've been trimmed in some spots.. i wouldn't say it dragged, but a few scenes felt superfluous..

I was happy to hear that John Wayne hated this movie--and complained that it "destroyed the myth" of the Old West. ha!


i got Straw Dogs and (of course) PG&BtK next to the tv, waitin' to be watched



PS. Happy Birthday, Robert Zimmerman!

ugh. Straw Dogs was unbearable. I hate movies like this--I honestly don't see how anyone could be entertained by it.

It reminded me of a mix between I Spit On Your Grave and the first half of An American Werewolf in London. And, now that I've seen it, I see Straw Dogs' influence on both. In fact, just about any movie made since that features either abduction and/or rape (Blue Velvet, Funny Games, I Spit On Your Grave, Thriller, etc) or a town of strange natives (The Wicker Man, Hot Fuzz, An American Werewolf in London, etc.) owes a debt to Peckinpah's film.

I honestly just don't understand the appeal of this movie. It was uncomfortable without being challenging. I'd only call a movie challenging if it ultimately pays off in some way. In this case, I don't think there's anything to be gained by sitting through the whole thing.

It blows my mind that A Clockwork Orange was released only weeks apart from Straw Dogs. I was sure that one was heavily influenced by the other. I feel sorry for movie audiences that month.

I'm sure I have more to say about Straw Dogs, but I don't really care to...

Tonight, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid will be the finale to my household's Peckinpah mini-marathon.

Ooh, it shouldn't be the finale! You should go out of your way to track down 'Ride the High Country.' One of the major themes that go through all of his Westerns is a lament for changing times. Old men who are outdated, but looking for redemption or purpose, etc. You see it everywhere in 'Ride the High Country,' 'The Wild Bunch,' 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue,' ' Major Dundee,' 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,' and even in some of his non-Western shit projects like 'The Ostermann (sic?) Weekend.'

Anyway, 'Ride the High Country' has that same lament. I don't find any of it depressing although I suppose you certainly could. One thing I've noticed with a lot of the Peckinpah I've been going back through is how he uses older familiar Western actors to underscore that 'The Times they are a-changin'.' Wheel these old stars and bit players out and give 'em a glorious (or not) exit from the film. The sorrow he seems to have going through these films ... kind of makes you think of 'The Shootist,' doesn't it?

actually, i have The Getaway as #8 in my netflix queue.. so Peckinpah won't be out of the picture for long..

okay, i watched PG&BtK.. I got plenty to say, but let's see if anyone else wants to kick start the discussion

Lakers kicked the Nuggets butt. Boo.

My previous history of Westerns consisted of 3:10 to Yuma (modern and original) and the Assassination of Jesse James (if that even counts), so excuse my ignorance in this review. I have real trouble relate to the action on screen. Everyone speaks in monotonous and soft voices and such that sometimes it i s hard to keep my attention. Anyways, I have always felt that westerns were very low key and it required a certain patience that my ADD mind could not handle. It is a true departure from what I am used to theatrically.

I found the Pat Garrett very interesting and complex, though it reminded me of 3:10 to Yuma a bit. The hero who ends up having feelings for this guy he was chasing after so long. I guess that would be the opposite but still. Anyways, I found it funny in a good way that he would sit there and smoke his cigar while ullets were flying all around him. He seemed very smooth and unflappable

It was fun seeing Kris Kristofferson in a young non-cardboard appearance. It kinda reminds me of professional sports players. Like in hockey, how a goon for the Chicago Blackhawks might have just broken all sorts of goal scoring records for his college team. So, it makes sens ein the end why they both have jobs now.

I loved a lot of the aspects of the cinematography. Th shot I liked the best was when the kids playing on noose next to American flag.

iI found interest in the side little conflict with Billy and religious cop

There was a lot more action then I would have expected. At times it was a bit random and did not make any sense ot me but I guess things were different in the wild West.

There were a few things that irked me, like Curtain scene. Garrett's pulldown of the curtain seemed just forced and it blew any "emotion" that was building in that scene. I didn't get the running chicken gag. Also, the Ruthie Lee scene + after it were the biggest WTF!? moments I have with a film since Indy 4.

76-76. we're rootin' for anyone who isn't the lakers

all finished

I watched PG&BtK, I was disappointed. I liked the typical westerns where the hero is in White and the bad guy in Black or the hero in Black and the bad guy is a dirty mexican.

My reason for not really liking this movie may be that Billy the Kid will forever by Emilo in my eyes. In this movie I thought Billy wasn't very scary, he was actually kinda week. They didn't make his character out to be a danger. Pat Garrett, although cool and collective, again seemed kinda week. There was also way too much sex in this movie, typical 70's movie I guess. But it was all unneeded, Pat Garrett at the brothel was very bizarre.

Note: I watched the 2005 edition so maybe I missed something

The very next night I had to watch A Fistful of Dollars to regain my love for westerns.

PG&BtK 4/10