Once notorious, now surreal, cornball and amusing
In 1881 New Mexico, newly-appointed Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell) is upset after Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) comes to Lincoln and essentially steals his good friend, Doc Holliday (Walter Huston). After Billy is wounded, Doc drops him off with his girlfriend, Rio (Jane Russell). While she has reason to hate Billy, the opposite happens. Eventually the four are forced to team-up to escape some hostile Mescaleros before having a showdown.
Shot in late 1940 and early 1941, “The Outlaw” was directed by the exceptional Howard Hughes with uncredited assist from Howard Hawks and Jules Furthman. It wasn’t released until 1943 due to censorship problems that required cuts & revisions and more widely rereleased in 1946-47. Due to the ballyhoo over it being "offensive to decency" it ended up setting records almost everywhere it was shown.
The uproar was apparently over sultry Jane Russell, who got the role after a nationwide search by Hughes for a busty actress, and mostly the sexual innuendo between her character and Billy the Kid. Ironically, when it was reissued to theaters in 1976 it was given a ‘G’ rating. Speaking of Jane’s buxomness, Hughes & his aircraft engineers designed a special cantilevered bra to enhance her bust, but she admitted in her 1988 autobiography that she secretly never wore it because it was too uncomfortable, yet this flick was the reason the famous bra was designed.
Ignoring the hullabaloo, what about the movie itself? Is it a worthy Western? Yes and no. Yes, because of Walter Huston’s charismatic performance as Doc Holliday and Jane’s pouty beauty (she looks like the sister Elvis never had). The movie can be entertaining if you acclimate to its corny surrealism, but the way the characters shift from mortal enemies to bosom buddies is jarring, yet amusing if you can roll with it. Meanwhile Thomas Mitchell is noticeably too old to play the role of Pat Garrett (who was only 31 in real-life when Billy was shot).
It’s worth checking out for the reasons noted, but don’t expect the greatness of early Westerns like “Stagecoach” (1939), “Buffalo Bill” (1944) and “Duel in the Sun” (1946).
The film runs 1 hour, 56 minutes, but there are also shorter versions, not to mentioned colorized ones, which I recommend unless you don’t mind B&W. It was shot at Red Rock Canyon State Park, Cantil, California, with studio work done in Los Angeles and second unit work done in New Mexico and Arizona (Tuba City & Yuma).
GRADE: C
