| The Left Handed Gun | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Arthur Penn |
| Screenplay by | Leslie Stevens |
| Based on | Teleplay byGore Vidal |
| Produced by | Fred Coe |
| Starring | Paul Newman Lita Milan John Dehner |
| Cinematography | J. Peverell Marley |
| Edited by | Folmar Blangsted |
| Music by | Alexander Courage |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Left Handed Gun is a 1958 American Western film and the film directorial debutofArthur Penn,[1] starring Paul NewmanasBilly the Kid and John DehnerasPat Garrett.
The screenplay was written by Leslie Stevens from a teleplay by Gore Vidal, which he wrote for the television series The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse 1955 episode "The Death of Billy the Kid", in which Newman also played the title character. Vidal revisited and revised the material for the 1989 TV movie titled Billy the Kid. The title refers to the belief that Billy the Kid was left handed, and he shoots left-handed in the film, though this was a false conclusion drawn from a reversed photograph. The film attempts to portray Billy the Kid as a misunderstood youth who got mixed up in a cattle war and was dragged down by the hostile population of New Mexico.
Drifter William Bonney, known as "Billy the Kid", befriends a cattle boss named John Tunstall, who is known as "The Englishman". Tunstall is murdered by corrupt rival cattlemen led by the local sheriff in the Lincoln County War. Bonney plans to avenge the crime by hunting down those responsible and killing them in provoked gunfights. His violent actions endanger his surviving friends and the territorial amnesty proclaimed by New Mexico Territory governor Lew Wallace. Billy's former friend, Pat Garrett, becomes a sheriff and sets out to hunt him down.
Billy's worshipful companion, Moultrie, lionizes Billy's actions, fueling a series of dime novels that transform Bonney into a legend. Billy is disgusted with his fictionalization, and he rejects Moultrie. Embittered, Moultrie betrays Bonney to Garrett. In a final showdown, Garrett ambushes and kills the exhausted Bonney, who faces his nemesis unarmed in the hopes of ending his own life.[2]
The film was a flop in the United States, but was praised by French film critics for its bold experimentation with the stereotyped American Western genre. In 1961 it won the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.[3]
The Left Handed Gun marks the evolution of the Kid's character from one of either evil or romantic extremes to that of an illiterate victim of circumstance.
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