Robert J. Maxwell If you listen to the opening scenes from this early talkie from another room, as I did, you'll quail. The acting is broad and the dialog like spoken title cards. ("Say, he can't outgun me.") But visually, crude as it is, it's not at all painful.For one thing, limited use is made of the typical "Western" ranches and towns that we see constantly on television and in films like "High Noon." There's a town here alright, but it's just a couple of ramshackle buildings, evidently built for the purpose in Northridge, California, where you can still find dilapidated buildings. Some of the important scenes are shot on locations, including two national parks.For another, it sticks fairly closely to historical reality, at least until the ending, when the virtuous Billy the Kid (Johnny Mack Brown) gallops off into the sunset with his girl friend. I have only an elementary grasp of the Johnson County wars, but my understanding is concurrent with the plot. At least I recognized some of the important names -- McSween and Tunston, for instance.The acting is all over the place, dominated by the need to shout lines so they'll be picked up by the hidden microphones. Wallace Beery,as Pat Garett, is his usual hammy self; this time he's a sheriff determined to keep the law but he has a soft heart when it's called for. The bad guys are really BAD. Johnny Mack Brown in the principal role looks okay, I guess, although perhaps a bit older than he might be, but he can't utter a believable line. Russell Simpson does pretty well by the Scotsman McSween.But the values promoted by the film are problematic. Billy the Kid takes it upon himself to murder those who murdered his friends and employers. The most evil of the evildoers is killed in cold blood. This is a reflection of the chivalric code of the aristocratic plantation owners of the South, the Cavaliers who believed that a man settled his own problems. That's what the sociologist Max Weber called "traditional authority," not the "rational/legal authority" that civilization now lives under. Mix that element of Southern values with the greed and ruthlessness of the Northern Robber Barons and you get land wars with vengeful shoot outs.It's a curious blend, still in evidence today.

drednm So OK this film has little to do with the real story of Billy the Kid, but director King Vidor gets the Lincoln County war (over land and cattle) pretty right. The location shooting for this talkie looks like New Mexico but not like the town of Lincoln. But Vidor captures the lawlessness and viciousness that drove the real-life events.Johnny Mack Brown (a big star at MGM) was still finding his way in talkies when he was cast here (against Vidor's wishes) as Billy. Brown was 26 years old, the veteran and more than a dozen silent films (working with MGM's top stars like Greta Garbo, Marion Davies, and Joan Crawford), and coming off one big hit talkie (COQUETTE with Mary Picford) and one flop (MONTANA MOON with Crawford). His Alabama accent would soon consign him pretty much to hundreds of westerns in film and on TV til the mid-60s.But here, Brown is a lanky, friendly, and brutally honest Billy who only kills when it's the right thing to do. His horror at the brutal murders of the unarmed McSween and Tunston drives his sense of right and honor. He's also sorta sweet on the would-be bride of Tunston (Kay Johnson).Pat Garrett (Wallace Beery) likes Billy but becomes sheriff. He knows his duty but he also knows the Billy the Kid legend is baloney. There's a terrific, long sequence when Garrett and his bunch burn out Billy and his men and pick them off one by one as they run from the burning house. It's a chilling scene but one can't doubt the honesty of it.Supporting players are an interesting mix here with Karl Dane as a cowboy who grunts a few unintelligible words, Roscoe Ates without his stutter, Russell Simpson, Frank Reicher, Chris-Pin Martin, and Blanche Frederici as the Widow McSween.But Brown and Beery take center stage and they are a terrific team. Beery is more subdued here than in many of his later talkies, and his rapport with Brown seems real. Brown is so likable as Billy it almost doesn't matter that as biography this is the bunk. Brown's dancing sequence is a highlight.

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) If you look at this film as the story of Billy you will be disappointed because it will seem naive and unrealistic. But the greatness lies in everything else. The panoramic views of the covered wagons and the scenery of New Mexico where it was actually filmed. The town people, especially the women and how they cope with the Lincoln County war that was going on. The characters of Tunston and his partner McSween, good hearted men, against the cruel Donovan, who practically owns the town and reminds one of Judge Roy Bean. The scene where Gov. Lew Wallace shows up with the army to talk to Billy. Happy moments like when Billy is dancing. Wallace Beery is an interesting Pat Garret and Johnny McBrown has a good performance as Billy, whose's guns are the ones he used in the film. Movies have evolved technically throughout the years, but a western made in 1930 tells a story in a much better way then most films nowadays. When I saw this film the credits showed the name as "The Highwayman Rides", but I guess it was changed after.

rduchmann King Vidor's 1930 adaptation of Walter Noble Burns' SAGA OF BILLY THE KID plays fairly fast and loose with the facts. Johnny Mack Brown, even in 1930, was a bit old for the lead, and Wallace Beery considerably too old for Pat Garrett. The romance between Kay Johnson's character and Billy is unknown to history, and the ending is a jaw-dropper as well.Against this, though, the film looks *terrific*, almost as if previously unknown contemporary documentary footage of the Lincoln County War had suddenly been found in some New Mexican attic. The sets are realistic, and realistically grubby, and the supporting cast are absolutely the scruffiest, most realistic-looking set of pre-Peckinpah westerners you'll ever see anywhere. (I think there may be more bald heads than average for the old west, but who knows? Those guys always kept their hats on.)Turner Classic Movies dusts this one off every few years (it's scheduled for 6/15/2000), and despite every justified quibble about the casting and the script, it is worth watching just to correct the visual impression you may have received from all the slicker and glossier versions of this story made since 1930.