Il mio corpo ti scalderà

Not too many movies create myths.

Anyone who read Harold Robbins', "The Carpetbaggers", (some 40 years ago) which in turn spawned "Nevada Smith", gets a superbly fictionalized accounting of Howard Hughes. Such fiction prefixes reality. It took a great number of years before I finally saw "The Outlaw" - an eagerly awaited event.

I've attempted to view the AMC-aired movie some three times - but got so antsy that I abandoned it. Few movies of this caliber have been so uneven. And yet it endures. Vintage alone gives the film status.

There's nothing wrong with anecdotal (vignette) - points-of-view movies, but in "The Outlaw", it was like watching one of those lumbering, exasperating silent films: where the actors stand across from each other, and each speaks their lines as if orchestrated by an off-stage conductor. Spontaneity is not this movie's long suit.

The actors: Jack Beutel is one of the most beautiful men to ever stand before a camera. His eyes are smoldering, his gaze laconic, his smile cheeky one moment and sensuous the next. Walter Huston is a young man in a middle-aged body; Thomas Mitchell (Scarlet's daddy in 'Gone With the Wind') is shifty, Irish, as conniving as Wally Beery, sniveling and crafty. And then there's the statuesque Jane Russell. Robbins gave us the intimate details of the suspension bridge-designed brassier - and Jane herself speaks of how she finally pulled the damn thing off and lined her breasts with a few Kleenex. She is as luscious as a near-nude Barbie doll, she is 19 years old, her lips inspire poetry - yet her voice is as monotonous as the Valley-inspired Val-speak of 25 years ago.

I wouldn't hazard to guess Howard Hughes' emotional consistency in the movie, however something went hellishly wrong. Someone fell on his face when it came to editing and scoring. Take the music, for example. It's Scoring 101, embarrassingly manipulative, often overriding the dialogue and ranging from 'Pathetique' to 'The Lone Prairie' mélange.

And then there's the acting: the Mexican senora rolls her eyes with all the panache of a 1940-Mexican B-movie bit actress. There is no spontaneity; she delivers her lines badly and with burning self-consciousness. And when Huston shoots Beutel in the hand, the latter doesn't even flinch; ditto, when he pierces both his ears with bullets. Staggering disbelief.

As to the scene where Jane Russell falls for Jack Beutel and kisses him, it's like watching two trains headed straight for each other. Overblown, top-heavy, agonizingly overreaching...it nonetheless has the sexual potency of an orgasm. The music, the god-awful Close-CLOse-CLOSE UP of Jane's lips bearing down on the half-delirious Beutel. Wow, what power! The men watching this film back in (ca) 1940 must have had to cover their laps.

I leave it to those with a sense of adventure to debate the movie's homoeroticism. There's no such implications from Beutel toward the two older men.

The movie, finally, has to be taken for the time in which it was made. The cinematography is as splendid as if it were turned 10 years ago. It is impossibly uneven, anecdotal, horrifyingly edited, pathetically scored, wretchedly acted...yet the actors are painful in their beauty. Many of the IMDb comments suggest that the film wants watching several times. I second that. It can be slow, cantankerous, giddy, sullen - but Jane's and Jack's beauty are undeniable, Walter is everybody's favorite grandfather. Toland can be thanked for giving us the movie's clarity. --And Howard... Howard was just having fun.

And run for the hills is exactly what Howard Hawks did after Howard Hughes couldn't keep his hands off the production. Mr. Hughes or someone took over direction and gave us the finished product which is a mess but a lot of fun just the same.

The build-up of Jane Russell (no pun intended) was one of the great publicity moves in film history. That famous shot of her lolling around on a bale of hay with her famous chest falling about was enough to entice most red-blooded males to this film And she didn't disappoint as Rio, the girlfriend of many, faithful to none. Throw in Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid and Doc Holliday (where did he come from?) and you've got a mix of relationships that vies with "Brokeback Mountain" for male bonding. And just for the hell of it, add some Indians which cause our heroes to embark in a cloud of dust across the landscape.

I found Jack Buetel (or Beutel) a rather attractive actor in a wispy kind of way. Jane Russell's chest probably weighed more than he did. Unfortunately he never recovered from this film outing and sank into oblivion This film is about as coherent as a Marx Brothers romp but not nearly as intentionally funny. The whole thing is contrived, there's a lot of talk, talk, talk, and if there is some underlying message, I missed it. BUT, you have to see it for the camp value......it's really more fun than it should be. Maybe Mr. Hughes meant it that way. On second thought, I guess not.

In all my many years (80) on this planet, I have never seen a movie that comes close to challenging ones senses as "The Outlaw". With both Doc and Pat vying for the friendship of Billy the kid, this seems curious. Then when Doc shoots a chunk out of both Billy the kids ears, with no apparent pain or bleeding, wonderment begins as if to say, "this is really a cartoon," wherein no one really gets hurt or bleeds. Finally, at the tormented conclusion, when Billy the kid starts to ride off, stops, turns in his saddle to look back at Jane wherein she gives him a stupid look, then smiles and jumps on the back of the Kids horse and they together ride off. The end follows and not a moment too soon. What a goofy movie!

There's something in its very weirdness that makes this almost worth watching - which is a positive, because there really isn't much in the story itself that would make it worth watching. Best known as the film debut of a very bosomy Jane Russell, the movie actually describes a completely fictionalized friendship between Billy the Kid (Jack Beutel) and Doc Holliday (Walter Huston). According to the story, Holliday arrives in the town of Lincoln, NM and meets up with his old buddy Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell.) Their friendship is strained when Billy shows up on the scene and Holliday becomes more involved with him. That's really where the weirdness comes in. Although Billy and Holliday are supposedly in a romantic competition for Rio (Russell), this really comes across as a 3-cornered homo-erotic relationship, with Holliday jilting Garrett for Billy. In the scenes between any combination of the three of them, that's really the sense you get of the relationship. It's truly bizarre to watch, which is perhaps not surprising for a movie produced and directed by Howard Hughes, who was already in a period of significant mental decline while he was putting this out. Hughes' OCD undoubtedly led to the very realistic and surprisingly detailed sets, but there was a lot that didn't fit well at all - including a dreadful musical score and some ham-fisted attempts at humour. The movie also includes surprisingly little gunplay for a Western. There's really not very much of interest here, but for Russell's sheer beauty as well as the over the top bizarre-ness of the whole thing, it gets a 4/10.

There are films that are great, films that are not so great, films that are bad...and then there are films that are so bad, so grandly misconceived, one can only gape in wonder or roar with laughter (or both) at their foolishness. Thus an awful film can sometimes provide more entertainment than many good films. (THE DEVIL BAT, starring Bela Lugosi, comes to mind.) Watched THE OUTLAW on DVD the other night with some friends, and we were falling off the couch. I'd always heard there was a homoerotic subtext to the picture, but this was no subtext -- gay porn must be more subtle than this film! Walter Huston's Doc Holliday (or Halliday -- I've seen it spelled both ways in regard to this picture) is CLEARLY the stud, Billy is a petulant young hustler who piques his interest (despite his having stolen the older man's cherished horse!), and Thomas Mitchell's Pat Garrett (Doc's "oldest

friend") seethes with jealousy throughout until he degenerates into the very apotheosis of a passed over, frantic, shrieking old queen. "You're not going with him! Everything was fine between us till he came along!" It has to be seen to be believed. Hilarious! The film's musical score is the worst -- THE WORST -- I've ever heard. There's less Mickey-Mousing in a Three Stooges short. So I recommend this one highly for parties. I guarantee a laugh riot. The thought of the great cinemotagrapher Gregg Toland (CITIZEN KANE) laboring on such camp trash is depressing, but he did give the film a fine look.