The Outlaw (1943)

The Outlaw is an American western first released in 1943, directed by Howard Hughes and Howard Hawks.  The film stars Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston and Mimi Aguglia.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Doc Holliday is delighted to meet up with his old friend Pat Garrett but is surprised to find him wearing a sheriff’s badge.  Holliday is lamenting the fact that someone has stolen his faithful horse when the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid suddenly shows up in town with this very horse.  Wounded by Garrett after killing a man, Billy is saved by Holliday, who takes him to his girlfriend, Rio.   Even though Billy killed her brother, Rio nurses him until he has recovered and Billy shows his gratitude in the only way a man of the Wild West can.   Realising that Garrett is still after him, Billy abandons Rio and rides out of town with Holliday.  The sheriff soon catches up with them, but before he can bring them to justice, they are attacked by Indians...

What was to become one of the most controversial American films of the 1940s started out as a conventional western, directed by Howard Hawks on a fairly modest budget and with a shooting schedule of a few months.  Producer Howard Hughes had a radically different vision of The Outlaw to that of his director and couldn’t resist intervening, to the annoyance of Hawks, who walked away from the project.  Hughes took over from Hawks, making this one of just two films that he directed, the other being Hell’s Angels (1930).   At the time Hughes, was also heavily committed to his other line of work, building aircraft for the war effort, and this, coupled with his almost maniacal perfectionism, meant that it took two years to complete the film.

With his keen commercial sense, Howard Hughes saw at once that his leading lady, Jane Russell, was box office dynamite.  In an attempt to exploit her obvious sex appeal, he included several scenes of an erotic nature which showcased the actress’s overt sensuality.   He knew that by doing so he would run into difficulty with the Hays Office, the Hollywood censors, and sure enough they insisted on major edits to the film.  Hughes refused to make all of the cuts that were requested and had the film released in a blaze of publicity in 1943, before the censors stepped in and had it withdrawn after just one week in circulation.  When the film was properly released three years later, it had acquired such notoriety that it was an enormous box office hit, grossing around five million dollars.  The film not only launched Jane Russell on her Hollywood career but made her an immediate sex goddess.

The Outlaw is pleasantly different to most westerns of this era in that it is a slow-paced character-driven piece that explores the complex relationship between the main protagonists instead of dragging them through a series of thrilling escapades.  The torrid coupling of Jane Russell and Jack Buetel may have been what excited contemporary audiences and vexed the censors but what is far more interesting is the relationship between the three male characters, which has some distinctly homoerotic overtones.   There is clearly something far more to the friendly rapport between Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid than just the usual male bonding, and the mutual tenderness conveyed by Walter Huston and Jack Buetel in their portrayal of the two characters is as poignant as it is amusing.  Reading between the lines, it is not too difficult to see a tentative forerunner to Brokeback Mountain in this compelling and entertaining film.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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