O Pistoleiro Marcado

The title role of this western is played by Robert Walker, Jr. He's a young gun who with partner David Carradine gets separated after doing a contract hit on a Mexican general. In eluding their pursuers Carradine and Walker become separated. Walker comes upon the camp of lawman Robert Mitchum who takes a liking to Walker and makes him a protégé and reclamation project of sorts.

This is the first of two films Robert Mitchum did with writer/director Burt Kennedy. The second was the more humorous The Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

Not that Young Billy Young does not have its moments of hilarity. But it is a tripartite story involving the Walker reclamation, Mitchum's hunt for the bad who killed his son and a romantic triangle involving Mitchum, Angie Dickinson, and town boss Jack Kelly.

The film abounds with nepotism. David Carradine is John's son. Dean Martin's daughter Deana is in this, Walker is the son of Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones and Mitchum's son Chris plays Mitchum's son in some silent flashbacks.

Robert Mitchum got his start in westerns and always looks right at home in them. Angie Dickinson essentially repeats the role she had in Rio Bravo. Walker had a brief career playing rebellious youths and doing a good job at it. I've often wondered what happened to him. He looks hauntingly like his father. Maybe he didn't want to come to such a tragic early end like his father.

And it that wasn't enough, Mitchum fans get to hear old rumple eyes sing the title song at the beginning of the film.

Billy Young and Jesse Boone (David Carradine) sneak onto a troop train and kill a Mexican General and his men. Billy loses his horse and is left behind with Mexican troops hot on Jesse's tail. Ben Kane (Robert Mitchum) is on his way to be a deputy sheriff and meets Billy. Ben is only allowed to be a tax collector. While in town, Billy gets into a fight over cards, kills the sheriff and gets run out of town. Billy runs into Ben Kane again. In town, Kane confronts John Behan and dancehall girl Lily Beloit (Angie Dickinson) offers her help alluding to an old incident. Jesse's father Frank Boone killed Ben's son.

This movie needs a darker harder edge. The material is geared more towards that end but the movie seems intent on making this a fun western. The light tones and music are ill-fitting. Also it's too precious with Ben's past. It should have explained the backstory much earlier which would have given the characters more compelling interactions. It would raise the stakes. By leaving the reveal so late, the characters don't have the connections. Ben and Billy should have stayed together but they keep bumping into each other haphazardly. They really need the time together to develop the needed chemistry.

Robert Mitchum plays a sheriff in a town dominated by evil bosses and their gangs. When MItchum arrests the son of the boss-man for murder, the gang is determined the sheriff won't live to punish the punk. As for his deputy (Robert Walker Jr.--who, inexplicably, gets the film named after his character), he's rather ambivalent--unsure whether to help or just get out of the way. Can they stand up against the combined forces of evil and survive (what do you think?!)? "Young Billy Young" is an enjoyable western. However, the plot is incredibly familiar--too familiar. Robert Mitchum himself (who stars in "Young Billy Young") appeared in "El Dorado" (a remake of "Rio Bravo")--which is pretty similar to such films as "High Noon" and "Last Train From Gun Hill". All these films (and many more) are like "YBY" because they, too, are stories about honest sheriffs who refuse to knuckle under to gangs who run old western towns. Because of this familiarity, the film just cannot rise above mediocrity even if it did star Mitchum.

In addition to Mitchum, the film stars two sons of famous actors--Robert Walker Jr. and David Carridine. They are competent but no more in the film. Its strengths are its acting by Mitchum as well as the nice relationship he has with Angie Dickenson (who was ALSO in Rio Bravo!). Negatives are Mitchum singing the opening song (uggh!) and the ridiculously easy way the two young guns kill off the Mexican general near the beginning of the film. The ending is also a bit abrupt.

"Young" Billy Young(Walker) is on the run after having killed a ruthless Mexican general. He runs into sheriff Mitchum, who "makes him an offer he can't refuse", i.e. to become his deputy. The young man is reluctant at first, but with bad guy Fred Boone on his way to town, he realizes that his help will be more than welcome.

However, if you think that the story centres on any of these events, you are wrong. It's a bit of everything and always too little of it, if you know what I mean. For example,you hear the characters talk every now and then about the bad guy Fred Boone. However, you won't get to see him until the final gunfight, which is over before you know it. Perhaps, the film is most interesting for fans of Robert Mitchum. He has a great part as the aging sheriff and obviously has a lot of fun playing it too. In fact, he must be one of the most enjoyable characters I have ever seen in an old western.(better than most John Wayne parts)

The acting is actually overall quite good. Angie Dickinson too has a nice part as a local "dancer". The story isn't too bad either, except then for the fact that it seems awfully shortened. The film as a whole lasts only a mere 89 minutes and that's just too short for the potential it has in it. So: not bad, but not better than 6/10.

Fans of the movie TOMBSTONE and other Wyatt Earp movies may be interested to know that this movie was very loosely based on Will Henry's WHO RIDES WITH Wyatt, a heavily fictionalized novel about Wyatt Earp's war with the Cowboy gang and his feud with Cowboy-sympathizing sheriff John Behan. In the novel, the "Billy Young" character is actually Johnny Ringo, who--in a completely fictional subplot--is at first protected, befriended and mentored by Wyatt (as Billy is by Kane in this movie), until Ringo gets more and more deeply involved with Curly Bill and the Clantons and Wyatt has to come after him. The novel is grim and dark, with an admirable but not very likable Wyatt. The movie is entertaining fluff, with a storyline that has less and less to do with the novel and the real Wyatt Earp as it goes along. Surprisingly, a good bit of the dialogue of the novel is retained, at least in the early scenes with Kane, and the script even retains the Earp-Behan-Lily triangle. The Behan character is even called "John Behan," and gets a surprising comeuppance from a surprising source. David Carradine is his usual watchable self as a more likable version of Ike Clanton.