Juge et hors-la-loi

Unlike other comedic Western films of this era, John Huston's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN is based on a singular premise: that God Almighty has decided to judge men on this earth through Roy Bean, a petty outlaw and drifter. Early in the film Anthony Perkins (as the circuit riding Methodist minister the Reverdend LaSalle)recites the salient portion of Psalm 58 at an impromptu funeral he is presiding over for the deceased frontier scum that tried to kill and rob the solitary Roy Bean, (to their catastrophic destruction by Bean himself) Thia will remain the recurring theme and leitmotiv that will dominate and justify the startling and unlikely quest of Judge Roy Bean, petty criminal turned self appointed judge of Vinagaroon county Texas.

Despite the extreme rusticity of Bean's surrounding and beginnings, his quixotic position of dispenser of justice steadily grows and grows until Bean has become the most respected and influential man in that extreme outpost of civization.His position takes on a unmistakable sort of grandeur, as does his chivalrous obsession with Lily Langtry, which in the end has flowered into perhaps the last shout of true chivalry in the ancient European sense. When the corrupting forces of the encroaching outside world seem to have completely swallowed up Bean's life's work, the judge, who has been 'down the pike/' for twenty years, unexpectedly returns for a true DIES IRAE, a reckoning. The final scenes with Ava Gardner as Lily Langtry, visiting the tiny remaining outpost and museum which bear her name delivers a ending moment of surprisingly fine sentiment. I LOVED this picture, with the exception of the idiotic song that was inserted into the middle of this soaring myth (probably insisted upon by investors who thought an original song, no matter how dismal would increase the projected box office to the level of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID.

An odd, uneven and off-beat western from '71-72 that most downbeat of hippie years - incidentally coinciding with the year the modern-western, 'Pocket Money' also starring good-looking blue-eyed American superstar, Paul Newman was released. Bleak but playful and full of quirky scenarios and cameos with a cine-literate script although without the surrealism of the Italian western genre. The night-time scene when Bean travels to the theatre by train dressed in a top-hat and tails and is subsequently mugged is lyrical and timeless; while the scene when Bean accompanied by his Mexican wife Maria-Elena, played by Victoria Principal surveys the mellow golden-brown Arizonan prairieland vistas has a compelling purity of vision. The early-'70s were pioneering years and stood often for intelligent cinema. It reveals just how multi-faceted Newman's acting style was.

If you're looking for a factual account of Judge Roy Bean, this is not the film. One has still to be made for veracity. You won't find it in the old television series that starred Edgar Buchanan as the judge nor will you find it in the old William Wyler western, The Westerner, that got Walter Brennan an Academy Award for playing Roy Bean.

But if you're looking for good rollicking entertainment than this is the film for you. I have to believe that Paul Newman must have loved making this film, because it allowed him to be colorful, outrageous, and overact like a ripe Virginia ham. John Huston as director doesn't hold him in check in any way and the results are grand.

In fact the real Roy Bean (1825-1903) lived a good deal longer and had a longer career than what is shown here. He was probably more of a hell raiser than what Huston and Newman give us. He had more children than the one daughter played by Jacqueline Bisset towards the end of the film. Huston did incorporate some of the legend, it is true that he had a stiff neck as a result of a hanging attempt.

Please note that the real Bean did die in 1903 so the whole last 20 minutes or so of the film is pure fabrication. But it's great stuff.

His obsession with fabled actress Lillie Langtry is also part of the Bean legend and it is true. They never did meet, but it is a fact that Lillie as played here by Ava Gardner did visit Bean's town now named Langtry, Texas after Bean's death here and in real life.

Victoria Principal made her screen debut in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean as the woman who nurses him back to health after some unfriendly bandits nearly lynch him and who becomes his wife. It's hard to believe that this is the same woman who played a much different Texas female in Pamela Barnes Ewing on Dallas.

Huston assembled a good supporting cast for Newman besides those I've mentioned, Anthony Perkins, Tab Hunter, Ned Beatty, Roy Jenson, Bill McKinney are some of them. My favorite is Stacy Keach as the crazed Albino killer who challenges Bean. His demise at Newman's hands is the image I carry most from this film.

I think when you see The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean it will be the same for you.

This whimsical western is a mixed bag, though I was slightly distracted throughout waiting for the appearance of a young Victoria Principal. Only knowing her "work" from FANTASY ISLAND, DALLAS and EARTHQUAKE, I expected her to be hopelessly flat in the company of higher echelon performers like Paul Newman. Well, was I ever shocked and humbled to note in the closing credits that our Miss P. had slipped right past my poised-to-be-nasty laser vision by slipping seamlessly into the role of Judge Roy Bean's young Mexican mistress. Principal is mellow, charming and realistic in the part, coming across like a more talented Claudia Cardinale. After making a debut like this in a John Huston film....WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED???

This is an outdoor epic Western in which director John Huston offers us an exciting , dramatic and amusing film . The Life and Times of Roy Bean (1972) is an intense , weird and rewarding western , which is filmed on location in Arizona with Paul Newman as the fabled hanging judge . It focuses on judge Roy Bean and his peculiar working methods , struggles and different visions of the country and world . Judge Roy Bean known as ¨The law west of the Pecos ¨ sentences outlaws by hanging them . And with varied group of misfit characters , the film explores the misery and the greatness of the human condition . Paul Newman was 47 years old when he played this movie and he was a very prestigious actor . The film gave Newman one of the best roles , playing a strong but sympathetic character , giving an attractive role as a cruel judge who'll stop at nothing to get his purports . As Newman/Bean is nice , likeable and capable , but at the same time , being a brutal person , that's why he relentlessly judges , condemns and sentences by hanging whatever suspect . The film describes the institutional and administrative instability that prevails in wide zones of western border , underscores the friendship , companionship , honesty , sense of adventure, enterprise and expeditive justice by sentencing against unscrupulous and dishonest people . The narrative is vivid and vibrant . The story is well presented , polished , stylish and free of nonessential items . The dialogues are sharp and funny , peppered with humor . The film includes spectacular scenes , fast-paced and iconographic amalgam of the vintage westerns with romantic references characteristic of modern western .

It's also a comedy , with a top-notch Newman and his special relationship with a familiar plethora of notorious secondaries , such as : Stacy Keach who's oustanding as Bad Boy , Anthony Perkins as a rare priest , Jacqueline Bisset as Bean's daughter , John Huston himself , Jack Colvin , Roddy McDowall , Anthony Zerbe, Ned Beatty , Matt Clark , Richard Farnsworth , Tab Hunter , Bill McKinney , Steve Kanaly, and of course , Ava Gardner as the famous Lilie Langtry . Furthermore, movie debut of the extremely gorgeous and very young Victoria Principal . It contains brilliant and amazing cinematography by Richard Moore that places an emphasis on the realism of the action and splendid frames , which is one of the best things of the movie . Emotive and stirring musical score by Maurice Jarre . The film was well made by John Huston , being a solid, absorbing and entertaining oater , while providing some interesting set-pieces among the strangeness . Huston exceeded making all kinds of genres , realizing here an excellent flick with a great feeling of coherence and emphasis as the majority of which went over his career.

The Bean 's role is based on actual events as Roy Bean (1825-1903) was a near-illiterate frontier justice of the peace who ran a combined court-saloon in the tiny railroad hamlet of Langtry in the West Texas desert between the River Pecos and the Rio Grande . He was known as the ¨Lay west of the Pecos¨ . He was running a saloon in a tent-town for railroad builders called Vinegaroon . Ben , backed by the Texas Rangers and the railroad , was appointed Justice of the peace , although he had never studied law . He managed to keep the peace with a strange brand of common and rough sense , often basing his ruling on a single law book . The stories about him are legion, most apocryphal . The fines usually stayed in his pocket and he acquitted accused on condition that he buy a round of drinks for the boys . The law of the Pecos was a law unto himself . He got himself elected Langtry's justice of the peace , holding court in his crude saloon called the ¨Jersey Lily¨ where he lived till his death in 1903 . In 1896 he brought fame to Langtry by staging the Fitzsmmons-Peter Maher heavyweight-boxing championship. He also performed marriages , ending the short ceremony with the worlds ¨I Roy Bean , justice of the peace , hereby pronounce man and wife . May God have mercy on your souls¨. Bean's ¨Jersey Lily¨ has been preserved by the Texas Highway Department and is now a tourist attraction.