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Dirty Little Billy More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 14 reviews in total |
13 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Superb and strange version with M.J. Pollard!, 13 July 2004
Author:
shepardjessica from sparks, nevada
This realistic and harsh re-telling of the Billy the Kid myth is definitely
worth anyone's time. Pollard is perfect as a none-too-bright Western punk
who unfortunately became infamous. It stars the beautiful Lee Purcell and
Gary Busey in a supporting role. Arthur Penn's Left-Handed Gun was very
good and this is the second best version of that often-botched story of this
kid.
Great and grungy cinematography, true-to-life costume design, interesting
soundtrack and authentic western types in a downbeat, almost Cassavetes-like
version of the tale. A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Michael J. Pollard.
If you can find it, check this moody piece of Western Americana. One of
Pollard's best films!
17 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
The other end of the spectrum, 7 June 2003
Author:
TxCracker from Houston
Watch Dirty Little Billy back-to-back with Young Guns for a testimonial to
how little faith you can place in Hollywood to give you an accurate
portrayal of history.
In the latter we have William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, portrayed as the
fastest, cleverest, most ruthless and domineering youngster ever born...a
boy capable of shooting it out with a dozen experienced gunfighters and
living to tell about it. Then, in the former, we have the very same
William
Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, now portrayed as this skinny little punk with
his
hands wrapped in bandages because farm work is too rough on his delicate
skin. He follows his hero, Goldie, around obsequiously, and trembles like
he's giving birth to porcupines whenever he's got a gun in his
hands.
So which one is accurate? Neither, of course; they're both Hollywood
characters. They're both historical B.S., just like almost every other
movie
ever made about any other famous person who ever lived. I'm sure the real
Billy the Kid fell somewhere far in between those two portrayals. No human
being that ever lived could have survived all those gunfights that
super-bad
Emilio Esteves won so easily. (must be kin to Sylvester Stallone), just as
a
sissy like Michael J. Pollard could never have survived for two days as an
outlaw in the Wild West.
But, is the movie good? Yeah, for entertainment value it's O.K. I guess,
but my being an old fart that saw it at the drive-in, back in '73, may
have
something to do with that opinion. (It came on Encore Channel last night,
which is why I'm writing this) I also kind of enjoyed Young Guns, even
though I had to roll my eyes alot at the ridiculosity of it all. (It IS a
word...I just invented it)
If you're a teenage badass wannabe, you probably won't like this flick.
It
will make you feel uncomfortable as you spot your own sad little
weaknesses
in Pollard's character. Someone like you is better off fantasizing that
you're Vin Diesel, while you watch Fast and Furious or something equally
low-brow and gangsta-oriented.
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
What a punk, 26 December 2004
Author:
Oliver-50 from United States
Forgotten little western about young slacker Billy arriving in the West
from New York and not wanting anything to do with his father's
crop-work. After being banished by his father he wanders aimlessly
through town and finds a mentor in the town outlaw Goldie. Not the
Billy the Kid story were familiar with; Billy is a dirty,
chubby-cheeked kid who doesn't have a care in the world and gets shaky
every time he attempts to fire a gun. The film has a terrific feel to
it with grainy brown and black colors. Dirty is an appropriate word for
the ambiance of the movie. Not much story per se, but the film is well
acted especially by Pollard who looks and acts as though he is a rabid
puppy. Some jarring moments of violence and a terrific ending. Worth a
look if you're a western fan.
*** out of ****
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Hidden gem?, 21 May 2001
Author:
matthew-54 from London, England
I haven't seen this film for some years, but it made quite an impression.
My
memory of the plot is sketchy, but I remember a pungent sense of place and
the black humour of re-presenting an outlaw hero as a dysfunctional
teenager. Michael J Pollard was "hot" in my mind due to his showing in
Hannibal Brooks. He certainly went for broke with his portrayal of Billy as
a bumbling and baffled (retarded, even?) teen in a Wild West that is
knee-deep in mud and horse-muck. The pistols Billy wielded seemed almost
too
big for him, huge, clumsy and old-fashioned.
Certainly as a impressionable British youngster, I'd never seen anything
like it before.
I'm
more than pleased to encourage others to seek it out. It could well be a
bit
of a hidden gem - the flavour and satirical energy of the piece are surely
in tune with today's tastes.
7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Where the heck is a DVD of this??, 12 April 2005
Author:
Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) from New York, USA
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie is brilliant, and like another commenter states, presents
what is probably a pretty close approximation of what it was like to be
in a tumbleweed nowhere in 1880 or so. Michael J. Pollard is probably
best known for his appearance on that Star Trek episode with the Grumps
& the kids who never grew old, and by golly if he does not appear to
have aged a day between 1967 and 1972, perfectly cast as a
"revisionist" presentation of America's most famous juvenile
delinquent, Billy the Kid.
After quickly realizing that farming is for the birds, a newly arrived
Billy goes trudging into town and winds up in the nowhere's only
saloon, which has been more or less commandeered by the local town
misfit/wayward punk name Goldie (young Richard Evans, acting like he
has snorted one too many Kiddee Whippets), a dimwit who has happened to
come into the possession of a six shooter and more or less refuses to
leave his place at the bar ... for about a week. As the grown ups
(including recognizable faces like Willard Sage and the great Charles
Aidman) muddle about in the manure & ankle deep mud outside and try to
reason with the oaf, Billy grows more and more fascinated with the
sheer power that having a pistol brings to the clueless fool, and over
the course of several days becomes a sort of "gofer" for the brute and
his likewise power dazed homespun squeeze in the form of the town whore
(gorgeous Lee Purcell, who's speech about a cold winter is one of the
most effective moments by an actor/actress trying to create the
impression that they live in a different time than the viewers).
The three share some thrills, chills and bellyaches (including a trip
to the back room for Billy & Ms. Purcell that results in the movie's
funniest line, and a truly brutal knife fight following a card game
gone bad that costs a supporting actress one of her ears!!) before
being coerced into leaving by the threat of violence, leading to
tragedy, death and cold blooded murder that happens in a manner that is
mundane, unsationalistic, powerful and wounding to watch. You can
understand why Billy became the merciless killer of legend after his
ordeal, with the film ending on a twisted high note as he & Goldie
celebrate his first mass murder of some lowlife scum who are even
scummier than Billy & Goldie.
And as other commenter's have noted, the aspect of the film which
leaves the biggest impression is how grimy, soiled, unwashed, grungy,
muddy, manure-splattered, cold, wet, damp, uncomfortable and
inhospitable the movie makes the wild west look, even though the bulk
of the film is set inside of this god forsaken, claustrophobic, unkempt
and dingy "saloon", which is more like a shack with a couple of hand
sawn tables & some crooked chairs that don't seem to sit square on the
floor. Everything looks cobbled together, overused, weather beaten and
about to fall apart -- There are no Singing Cowboys in this film with
rhinestone studded guitars and horses with first names. It is a bleak,
dismal and cramped looking film, and yet it is actually rather life
affirming to watch and witness Billy changing from a rather slow, half
awake schlemiel into a ruthless & calculating gunfighter, wielding a
pistol that looks about two sizes too big for him and managing to
actually hit his targets with alarming accuracy.
Seek this movie out: I managed to capture a screening off TBS years ago
during a Cowboy Matinée Afternoon special or something like that, and
while cut for content it's still one of the most effective US made
Spaghetti Western influenced "adult" westerns made -- that meaning a
film using western themes as it's departure point rather than a Cowboy
Movie about Doc & Hoppy riding herd or having shootouts at old corrals.
This is a western as post-modernism, using the conventions of the genre
to create a new form and managing to do so brilliantly, even while not
appearing to have accomplished much at all on initial inspection. And
like most films that are more interesting than the hot new garbage
media companies expect us to buy, there is no home video release or DVD
available, probably having to do with the rights to the film's
fascinating musical score, one sequence of which is played entirely by
a wind-up bell chime machine as an ingenious Juke Box precursor.
What's even more remarkable is that director Stan Dragoti made exactly
five other films during his career, the most recognizable being LOVE AT
FIRST BITE with George Hamilton, MR. MOM with Michael Keaton, and the
notorious SHE'S OUT OF CONTROL with Tony Danza lusting inappropriately
after daughter Ami Dolenz. Maybe not the most sparkling portfolio, but
his percentage of masterpieces to movies made is pretty impressive.
***1/2 out of ****
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
True Aesthetic Spirit of the Old West, 7 June 2004
Author:
dotcomthis from Sparks, Nv
This movie deserves kudos. It is a depiction of the Old West that is self re-enforcing in it's historical accuracy and aesthetic spirit. There is more truth in this picture than I've seen in 99.9 % of cinematic works I've seen. The main characters are uneducated ignorants who are the bad seeds in the territory. All of the standards of living available and the resultant eccentric TYPES encountered in the late 1800s for people in their circumstance are brought to light in a way accurate to that period. Of course, if you are unable to stomach gritty, raw dirt and grime reality then this picture may not be for you. But one of the coolest movies I've ever seen.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
A good film which represents the "real" western way of life, 6 May 2002
Author:
Werner Kienberger from Munich, Germany
A good film which represents the "real" western way of life. Not the well-chosen "white-teethed" and "well-shaved" western hero. Not cold-blooded with a smashing big mouth. A film which impresses with its production design and its way to show the truth. Billy was not hero but a tragical person. The actors did their rolls very well and the director hat a lot of braveness to do a film not "main-streamed". A absolutely MUST-HAVE-SEEN-FILM.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
a great indie film when they were not popular, 26 March 2005
Author:
crivera_ojo from United States
It is not a typical western in that it does not intend to glorify
gunfighters. This movie felt like part of a documentary since the sets
seemed so realistic and the characters were very credible.
The movie seems to be made with a tight budget, whether that is the
fact or not I don't know. I also loved the violent scenes, fights,
gun-play and so on.
Even though most western movie fans know the outcome of the life of
Billy the Kid, the outcome does not seem predictable the way Michael
Pollard plays the character.
I also loved the character of Lee Purcell (Berle), she was amazing and
very credible. Though her character displayed a displeasing picture of
violence against women she also was able to show the strength and
character of the woman in the film (Berle).
I definitely recommend it, if you are tired of seeing those puffed up
and testosterone injected westerns we are all used to seeing.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Outstanding revisionist Western, 21 March 2011
Author:
mauryk2
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I've been waiting 30 years to see it and Sony finally made it available
on March 1, 2011. This movie totally de-constructs the myth of one Old
West outlaw, Billy the Kid. It fictionally tries to show there was
nothing glamorous about where he came from or how he developed into
what he became. Pollard is perfect for the role. Lee Purcell is perfect
in her role. Like so many others, I can't understand why she didn't
become a bigger star. The early West was a mud hole. Every character in
this movie is physically dirty including the usually beautiful Ms
Purcell. The movie also hints that maybe outlaws weren't bigger than
life but the opposite.
A punk with the biggest revolver I ever saw takes over the saloon in
the middle of this wretched town. Everyone's afraid of a crazy with a
gun. He takes Billy under his wing.
This movie is an antidote to the standard Hollywood & TV Western of the
Fifties into the early Sixties.
4 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Everyone is Dirty, 26 March 2005
Author:
aimless-46 from Kentucky
Back in the ancient 1970's, only the high budget pictures had
production designers. The others had to rely on the cinematographer to
make sure the art director, the set designer, and the make-up/costume
people were all on the same page; so that the picture had a consistent
look. Ralph Woolsey was one of the better cinematographers at keeping
all these elements under control. He was a busy guy in 1972 and two of
his pictures were westerns: "Dirty Little Billy" was made right after
"The Culpepper Cattle Company"- arguably one of the top ten westerns of
all time. And while "CCC" is significantly better than "DLB", they
share beautiful cinematography and production design (may have
literally shared it because they probably used the same stuff in both
productions).
It became popular after Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (1971)
to replace the well-scrubbed Roy Rogers look and portray the west as
dirty, dusty, gritty, unshaven, and tattered. Woolsey eagerly embraced
this realism and gave us two of the grimiest features we are likely to
see. Perhaps the most entertaining thing about "DLB" was the casting of
Lee Purcell as the seediest looking western heroine of all time.
Compared to "Berle", Susan Tyrell's saloon gal "Alma" ("Shoot Out") was
a tidy sorority girl. You might expect this look from Barbara Hershey,
but Purcell was deservingly typecast as prissy/demure so the movie is
worth a look just to imagine her inwardly cringing each time she had to
make an appearance on the set.
The story itself is extreme historical distortion, but so moronic as to
render itself harmless. Still, it is puzzling that they bothered to
give it the appearance of being history, as it would have worked fine
as fiction. It has a nice surprise ending and several
soon-to-be-famous-in-television actors; Mills Watson would go on to
great things as bumbling Deputy Perkins in the many "Sheriff Lobo"
programs and Dick Van Patten would play father "Tom Bradford" on "Eight
Is Enough".
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