The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

John Huston

Writers:

John Milius (original screenplay) and
C.L. Sonnichsen (book)

Release Date:

18 December 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | Western

Tagline:

If this story ain't true... it shoulda been

Plot:

A no account outlaw establishes his own particular brand of law and order and builds a town on the edges of civilization in this farcical western...

Plot Keywords:

Law | Law And Order | Outlaw | Judge | Justice

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 2 nominations

Cast

Paul Newman	...	Judge Roy Bean
Roy Jenson	...	Outlaw
Gary Combs	...	Outlaw
Fred Brookfield	...	Outlaw
Bennie E. Dobbins	...	Outlaw (as Ben Dobbins)
Richard Farnsworth	...	Outlaw (as Dick Farnsworth)
Leroy Johnson	...	Outlaw
Fred Krone	...	Outlaw
Terry Leonard	...	Outlaw
Dean Smith	...	Outlaw
Margo Epper	...	Whore
Jeannie Epper	...	Whore
Stephanie Epper	...	Whore
Victoria Principal	...	Maria Elena, aka The Angel (Bean's woman)
Barbara J. Longo	...	Fat whore

Runtime:

120 min | West Germany:105 min (cut version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 | Germany:12 (re-rating) (cut) | West Germany:16 (cut) | Singapore:PG | France:Unrated | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Arizona, USA

Company:

First Artists

Trivia:

First film role for Victoria Principal.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When Bean visits San Antonio to see Lilly Langtry several steel drums are visible in the alley behind the theatre that are of a design not available until the early 1930s.

Quotes:

Judge Roy Bean: The last time that bear ate a lawyer, he had the runs for thirty-three days.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Sopranos: Live Free or Die (#6.6)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

Marmalade, Molasses and Honey

A unique and successful mythic treatment of a quintessental American folk-hero.

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.