Un colt pour une corde

After watching Ted Kotcheff's Billy Two Hats, I thought to myself that the movie is a pleasant little nothing of a western, but that there must have been a belief that Israel might be the location for a whole new generation of spaghetti westerns, but in this case, something like, Lox and Bagel Westerns.

I don't know enough of traditional Jewish food to know if that joke was worth it. So, forgive my ignorance.

The best part of Billy Two Hats is Desi Arnaz, Jr.'s wide-eyed, gob-smacked look when he hears or sees something he didn't anticipate. It actually works. The character has been through a hellish upbringing, but he's still innocent enough to be stunned by human ugliness.

Arnaz is an old guy now, and I don't know if he did much after this movie, but there was an inkling that he could have grown into a fairly substantial character actor.

Gregory Peck is just embarrassing. That Scottish stuff that comes out of his mouth is like sticking a car key in your ear to clean it and somebody comes by and bumps your elbow. Peck had good hair, though, and his later scenes, stuck under the wagon, were better because he didn't say much.

David Huddleston and Jack Warden are fat and mean, respectively.

So, nothingburger? The only reason I watched this movie is that I thought the title was intriguing way, way back when I watched a "making of" preview at the end of some network movie that ended fifteen minutes before the late news on the ABC affiliate. I thought the idea of a western shot in Israel was cool. The actors seemed familiar.

I never saw the movie, not even when it got shown on regular TV.

This is where I'd normally say something snarky about my being wise in high school, but it wasn't true. I watched Billy Two Hats because it was convenient. ROKU TV is free. I had time to spare.

Actually, you don't kill time, you murder it.

I think this movie is underrated as a western. Or maybe it's just under-seen, which is really a pity. With nice color photography, it's got some really great western visuals, a meaty storyline, a collection of disparate characters whose fates you really start to care about, and some memorable, quotable dialogue here and there. Jack Warden is excellent as a gruff frontier sheriff "just doing his job," as it were. He's a toned-down and more accessible version of Gene Hackman's over-the-top bastardly sheriff in "Unforgiven." Gregory Peck, playing a words-of-wisdom-spouting Scottish outlaw with a big heart, is really quite good with his Scottish accent (no, it's not perfect, but passable), and has some memorable lines. Desi Arnaz Jr. is quite the sympathetic character as a half-breed Kiowa Indian outlaw being brought to justice by the sheriff. The supporting cast is quite good, and oh.. that nasty little band of outlaw Apaches they run into is truly a scary lot. You can't help but wonder how many white settlers they raped, murdered and pillaged.

All in all, the movie is packed with memorable western images and meaningful lines of dialogue . See it if you get a chance. I'd love for this movie to get more air time.

At the end of this movie, I wasn't sure that I'd enjoyed it. But as the day wore on, I found myself continually thinking about it. Often, I leave a movie thinking I've enjoyed it and never give it a second thought. I wasn't sure for a lot of the film exactly what the point is other than the relationship between Peck (An outlaw with Scottish descendancy) and Billy (A half-breed Native Indian). But actually, this is the point and the characters are what make this movie work. Gregory Peck could never be accused of being type cast and he gave a valiant attempt at pulling off a Scottish accent. A lot of the words he nailed but then the accent completely disappeared for run of the mill dialect. A little more direction and time and his language would have matched an otherwise strong performance. Billy seemed a straightforward character to start with but layer upon layer are revealed as the movie progresses including an explanation for an otherwise daft movie title and you really find a sense of his history and upbringing. The sheriff gave a worthy performance but I was particularly impressed with the Apache gang and the stuttering wife. The Apache were made all the more terrifying by their random nature and personality so far removed from stereotypical Apache. The guy with the white parasol was the best of the bunch. The parasol is mentioned but no reference is made to how he obtained this. Some things are best unsaid, had he massacred a previous wagon and removed this as a trophy from some poor unsuspecting traveller? The stuttering wife was beautifully played. Her husband's answer to this disability was to slap her round the face. To her and her guests, this was nothing more than abuse but the husband clearly thought he was 'Rattling her brain box' and helping her out. Her vulnerability, loneliness and desire for love were superbly portrayed and I wish her love for Billy had been explored more fully. The movie reached a stand-off climax and there is a moral about how we treat our dead at the end which again leaves you thinking. Give this movie a chance, you may well draw a different conclusion but it is a little gem worth giving a chance.

I saw this film on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

It seems others have made a virtue out of this film's odd credentials and quite possibly used these against the film itself. On the face of it and if you didn't know (most folks won't, or care) then this is a decent western, with a Sam Peckinpah sense of gritty realism and dynamism.

The story follows a familiar one; an aged Scottish Gregory Peck and a young half-caste youth become fugitives - then friends - after a bungled bank robbery. They are pursued by racist and violent sheriff Jack Warden who hounds the pair, right to the bloody finale. There's good action and the unusual Israeli scenery actually adds a bit of variety to the surroundings.

The interestingly titled Billy 'Two Hats' is given an unusually sympathetic and approachable role, especially considering the western genre's tendency to the opposite toward native American characters. This again, adds to the flavour of the film, giving it a nuance that marks it apart from dozens of others.

I'd not heard of 'Billy Two Hats'; its title got me interested in the TV listings and found it well worth the time and effort but not quite enough to buy it on DVD.

I am a fan of the Cowboy/Western genre. I've watched a lot of Western movies, from the 50's B movies to the John Ford masterpieces and Clint Eastwood's honest portrayal. This is a very good Western, it has some great powerful performances from Peck and Arnaz Jr who was truly very watchable and conveyed a lot of underlying emotions. The movie concerns the relationship between diverse characters, Peck's humorous kind portrayal of a man who has turned to crime to ensure a living, to Arnaz's contained portrayal of a man caught between two worlds, perhaps his two hats nomenclature is a euphemism for the two worlds he straddles. The supporting characters are no less interesting with Jack Warden as the relentless sheriff who doesn't understand the relationship between the two and David Huddlestones Store owner who was a buffalo hunter sharpshooter in the recent past and who can see the new future promised by the railroad and the advent of civilization to come. The move itself is quite metaphorical and symbolic but doesn't lose sight of the main thread, that of the growth of Billy Two Hats in the company of his wise mentor. I really enjoyed it, and I hope you will too. The only downside was Gregory Peck's dreadful Scottish accent which appears and disappears randomly throughout.