Rent The Left Handed Gun (1958)

Juvenile Delinquent - The Left Handed Gun review by Steve

This fictionalised biopic of Billy the Kid is buffeted between two contrasting influences. It comes at the end of the Hollywood studio system which is evident in the old fashioned country ballad which plays over the opening titles. But there are also indications of the revisionist US westerns to come.

Arthur Penn's debut feature gives us premonitions of the new Hollywood of the '60s, including a brief slo-mo of an outlaw's death. And while the actors are not grizzled, neither do they iron their shirts like Randolph Scott. Plus there's one grotesque closeup that might be from a Spaghetti Western...

James Dean was due to star when he died and it's easy to place this in the mixed-up-teens wave of the '50s; the legendary gunman was killed aged 21. He's played by Paul Newman, aged 33, who is raw but there's curiosity in his awkward method approach. And those eyes make an impact, even in b&w.

It's ultimately just another western about the Lincoln County War- from Gore Vidal's 1955 tv play. There is too much idiotic horseplay and too little iconography or style; while it may have looked cutting edge in '58, its reputation doesn't compare well to what Sergio Leone was soon to do with the genre.