I Shot Billy the Kid

As in "A Donald Barry Production." 'Nuff said.

This William Berke Productions version of Billy the Kid's saga mixes much fiction, even to the names of all of the New Mexico towns other than one, with few facts but does give non-Producer star Don Barry a chance to show how lovable he can be even when playing a cold-blooded killer. He misses on that point, despite more grinning close-ups than the law should allow, but he is better than Jack Buetel. The film, based on just being a low-budget quickie version of Billy the Kid, aimed at grind-house Saturday matinées, hits that target dead on even if does use endless inserts of Billy or Sheriff Pat Garrett, on horseback, loping along hither and yon to pad the running time.

The real highlight of this one is possibly the single-worse performance ever seen in a B-western in Claude Stroud's portrayal of New Mexico Governor General Lew Wallace. Filled from front-to-back with B-western veterans such as Frank Ellis, Ray Henderson, Jack Perrin (playing a Garret deputy named Mack), and Merrill McCormick (playing a Garrett deputy not-named Mac), and even (brief) archive footage, featuring Bob Cason and Tom Tyler from Ron Ormond's Jimmy Ellison/Russell Hayden series, and excellent camera work by Ernest Miller and Archie Dalzell (one of the few instance of a camera operator actually receiving a screen credit in this period of film history), and editing by Carl Pierson in making the archive footage fit seamlessly, except the one instance of using really-archive footage from a silent film.

Actor/writer Dean Reisner, credited on the film as Dialogue Coach (a job he often performed) must have been out to lunch when the Stroud scenes were filmed.

Don (Barry) dons the role of the young rebel outlaw of the Southwest. Barry is probably twice the age that Billy ever lived to be...and history is played with fast and loose in this low budget quickie produced by theatre owner/producer Lippert. Plenty of action, and Barry's screen presence make this one acceptable viewing.

Is this movie a response to Sam Fuller's I SHOT JESSE JAMES, released one year earlier? I have the Fuller's film in my library but I don't remind it, so I won't compare the two films, speaking of the two most notorious Wild West myths, legends. Anyway, Sam Fuller, even a young Samuel Fuller, will give another directing different from William Berke's one. No problem. That said, this short B western is not lousy, as we could expect, better than the Ken Maynard's or Johnny Mc Brown stuff, or even Allan Lane, Roy Rogers.... There were dozens of films speaking of Billy The Kid and a very few of them emerge: LEFT HANDED GUN, PAT GARRET AND BILLY THE KID are the top of the basket for me. So don't despise this B western please. But we can get amused by a nearly forty years old Don Barry playing a twenty two years old Billy the Kid, this is ridiculous; the same with Robert Taylor, also playing the same character in David Miller's BILLY THE KID, Taylor who was thirty years old and looked far older for this role. The same crew: William Berke, Don Barry, Robert Lowery will also be together the same year for GUNFIRE, another western speaking this time of Frank James, another western legend.

Yes, I know. Low budget shoot 'em up. Don Barry more than twice as old as the Kid lived to be.

My uncle was a Western fan back in the late forties/early fifties. We used to go movies on Friday nights, (Durango Kid, Red Ryder, Rocky Lane, etc). I was hooked for life. I love the old westerns. I remember when we first got a TV. There was a dinnertime western movie program called "Stagecoach Theater". (Johnny Mack Brown, Buster Crabbe, Bob Steele, Hoot Gibson, Tim McCoy, Tex Ritter, Buck Jones).

I remember watching "I Shot Billy the Kid" with my father late one night. I have been trying to find a copy for years without success. Can anyone help?

Too bad the movie didn't have Hollywood bad boy Tom Neal playing Pat Garret. That way we could have had a face-off between two of the tougher actors in Tinsel Town. Barry, of course, could be as intense as a forest fire, if called upon. Here, however, he tries to display a charming affable side that undercuts needed tension. Unfortunately, Neal's apparently along for the ride with nothing much to do. However, he could do intense tough guys on screen as well as in real life (ask poor Franchot Tone). A showdown between them would have real potential. As it is, Robert Lowery's Garret is little other than a blandly handsome presence.

The movie itself lacks drama, spending more time on riding aimlessly around Vasquez Rocks, just north of LA, instead of building up the plot. Then too, the climax, which should be a highlight, is staged more like an afterthought—was cheapjack Lippert running out of film. Anyway, this is one of the least of the many efforts at mining one of the West's biggest legends. Too bad.

(In Passing— Besides being an eye-catcher, the exotically slanting Vasquez Rocks was popular in these budget westerns mainly because they're in LA County. Because of that, production companies don't have to pay extra location fees to cast and crew.)