The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

Beanisms!

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is directed by John Huston and written by John Milius. It stars Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Ned Beatty, Roddy McDowall, Tab Hunter, Victoria Principal and Ava Gardner. Music is by Maurice Jarre and cinematography by Richard Moore.

In Vinegaroon, Texas, former outlaw Roy Bean becomes the self appointed judge for the region and dispenses his brand of justice as he sees fit.

There were a handful of Quirky Revisionist Westerns that surfaced in the 1970s, usually directed by a big name and starring another, one such film is this effort, and much like the others of its ilk it is met with understandable division. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean can not be recommended in confidence since it is far too rambling and episodic for its own good, something which writer Milius was at pains to say himself. Going so far to say that it’s not the film he wrote and that Huston just did his own thing and steered the pic in another direction – for better or worse depending on your own filmic proclivities.

The intention on the page was to have a man clearly with delusions of grandeur, a self appointed judge, jury and executioner, and as an egostical berk into the bargain as well, this side of things comes through. Yet the pic never settles down into a coherent rhythm, as a number of characters played by guest stars wander into each episode, the pic stalls and resorts to bawdy frothery or pretentious surrealism to hopefully hook you into staying with the piece. Unfortunately come the hour mark this becomes tedious and it’s a slog to get through.

Some folk do love it, and maybe it’s one to revisit on occasion to catch any nuances missed previously, maybe even grasp the point Huston was trying to make? But for me it’s a mess, an overblown mess that not even the great Paul Newman could save. 5/10

It was always going to be difficult for anyone to beat Walter Brennan’s feisty effort as this character from 1940, but Paul Newman and John Huston come close with this slightly contradictory portrayal of the 19th lawman. We start as he, himself, only narrowly escapes a vigilante squad who didn’t much like the cut of his gib and then returns to exact his own vengeance. A chance encounter with “LaSalle” (a barely recognisable Anthony Perkins) sets in train his ruthless reign over a territory that saw him use the rule of law to coax, cajole, threaten and downright extort from anyone who had the misfortune to pass through so he could expand his hick town into something that, believe it or not, did actually have some semblance of law and order to it - providing you were prepared to swear an oath to Lily Langtry. Of course, as we know, absolutely power can corrupt and as his reputation grew the place attracted those worthy and those deadly, and it’s soon those latter folks as well as a fondness for “Maria Elena” (Victoria Principal) that look like changing things. It’s quite a confusing plot, this. On the one hand he’s a ruthless and violent man who thinks nothing of hanging and shooting - just ask the scene-stealing Stacy Keach, on the other hand he does have a code of decency that does want his town to become gentrified. It’s that paradox of styles that helps this to work, but that also illustrates just how difficult it was for anyone to “civilise” an aptly named Wild West where an horse or a wallet was worth way more than a man’s life. There are plenty of familiar faces popping up here, but none that really epitomise the genre which is a shame. Still, Newman is on good form for the first hour or so before the pace starts to fall away and the whole thing starts to become a bit flat before there’s a lively denouement and the arrival of the star of the whole thing, and boy does she positively glow! It’s a good film, just not a great one, and I’m afraid I’m still with Brennan on the best Judge Roy Bean.