Customer Reviews

THE LEFT HANDED GUN

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Directed by Arthur Penn, 1958, THE LEFT HANDED GUN, is the story of Billy the Kid, alias William Bonney, the kids real name Henry McCarty, as Paul Newman portrays the outlaw true to realistic, yet in the Newman way which makes Paul Newman an exceptional actor, at some points in the movie, you get the feeling Newman's a New York thug or reminiscent of his great role as Rocky Graciano in, "Somebody Up There Likes Me", adding the rebellious ingredient for the part of Bonney as a young desperado trying to grasp the meaning of life and death, while searching for the revenge of his mentor's murderers, at the same time running and hiding from the law. This film is partly truth and partly fiction and also making his directional debut, Arthur Penn, director of "Bonnie and Clyde", showcases a young Paul Newman on the top of his game and an adequate supporting cast, this is a Warner Bros. DVD, black and white, full screen or 16x9 anamorphic widescreen, at a cheap reasonable price, a forgotten western classic.

This black and white 1958 version of the life of Billy the Kid is very well acted by Paul Newman, who portrays Billy as a somewhat backward, impulsive, childish young man - he died at age 21 - who was unable to read. Billy is taken in by a kind rancher who is transporting his rather large herd of cattle to Lincoln, New Mexico. Some of the ranchers in Lincoln want the sheriff to stop the kind rancher, a man who hates the use of guns, so that the market will not be glutted and the prices lowered. The sheriff and three of his deputies go out to the herd and shoot the rancher. Billy is outraged and swears revenge against the four murderers. The film tells how he and two fiends take revenge, how he is befriended by Pat Garrett, how he is offered amnesty but refuses it because he has not yet finished taking revenge, and why Pat Garrett decides to become the sheriff and arrest him.

The reviews here seemed ho-hum, but decided to give film a try anyway and am glad I did. I thought it excellent, Paul Newman good but the real performance goes to John Dehner as Pat Garrett. A face any filmgoer will immediately recognize, but wouldn't have guessed his name for a million dollars. A wonderful performance, body language, eyes, and deliberate delivery coming together perfectly. There's not a lull in the script, and it gives both sides of the story. Bonney's collecting of books he cannot read a great metaphor for an unrealized life.

That was the Wild West, not so wild though but quite wild yet. A poor kid who was born in that atmosphere of violence, who found himself alone, walking in the wild, carrying his saddle and his gun is recuperated by some rancher taking a small herd to Lincoln. For obtuse reasons that have probably to do with some economic vengeance, the sheriff and three deputies kill the rancher, an old unarmed man, in the morning at the top of the pass leading to Lincoln. The young man, Billy the Kid, reacts in a strange way and will not really change his mind which is not his mind but his habitual way of thinking. He wants justice, hence he is going to stand and challenge the four people. Then the rest is details you can discover them all by yourselves. The film is good because the young "Kid" is shown as being slightly slow in his brains. He is practically adopted by some people in a Mexican city next to Lincoln, but he rapes the girl because he cannot accept things not to go the way he wants them to go. And that will be his doom. The film is also good because it shows how those who had a star, sheriffs or marshalls, could do anything they wanted, more or less, and rather more than less. And they definitely shot before being shot at. Preventive self defense, even when they could not say whether the man had a gun or not. Preventive self defense. The last reason why this film is still worth seeing is because we can really watch a good actor being born. Small touches here and there show the humane side of things, of this "Kid", a flute, or an expression on his face, or his negotiating the lie that he could read though he could not. I will regret though that this slightly mentally slow "Kid" is not kept from beginning to end, but that is how the film is directed. He used his guns or other defensive method as a reflex of self-preservation more than of violence. He was completely absorbed and possessed by the outside world seen as a potential danger, which is total distraction, if not the sign of a deranged mind in a way. But we only get that feeling from time to time, not always. That's a regret of mine.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Arthur Penn's commentary on this movie is one of the best and most informative I have ever heard on a DVD or Blu-Ray. Lots of good information. I had seen parts of this movie on Encore Westerns Channel. When I saw James Best in the movie and saw that it was filmed on the old Warner Brothers Western Street that they used in "Maverick" and all those other Warner Brothers TV westerns, I decided to purchase this movie. The other interesting thing is all of the actors from TV (John Dehner for one) who are in this movie.

"The left handed gun" was part - with "The naked spur" and "Ride the high country" of a notable existential Western triad that depicted those unsaid insights about the affective universe of the gunmen.

On the other hand, we have the vertiginous rise of an actor who recently had won the Silver Bear in Berlin as Best Actor for "A long hot summer", Paul Newman who demonstrated he was blessed by the Gods. A decisive film that constituted for him the golden gate for next films to come on his golden decade, like "The sweet bird of youth", "Hombre", "Hud", "Exodus" and "The Hustler"

And finally this was the movie who made of Arthur Penn the most European of the American filmmakers.

Films like this, unfortunately, are actually missed.

ordered this dvd on a saturday evening received on the following wednesday. good old classic western.

This movie has aged well.It is interesting to watch a young Paul Newman.It takes a few liberties with history but if you like westerns you could do worse.

One interesting factoid missing in these reviews about this movie: screenwriter Gore Vidal's loathing for the movie and, especially, for the Director Arthur Penn.

I've read articles and seen video clips of Vidal, centering on how he thinks Penn destroyed his play and screenplay. Vidal may have a bit of a point almost no one else makes about Penn and his ways, yet this is still a good movie. No doubt, significantly because Paul Newman plays Billy. Newman has always had the way of playing the contemptuous punk with the undertone of dangerous and needy instability.

No doubt, the movie also works as another great story of mythic America, recast. No matter what Vidal thinks, he gets some of the credit, too.

Interestingly, historians like Robert Utley seem to have proved that Bill was not actually left-handed. The famous picture was printed backwards.