Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

New Mexico, 1881. The ageing lawman Pat Garrett is hired to bring in his old friend Billy the Kid. The subject is not the chase but the closing of an era, and the man who agrees to stand on the closing side. Sam Peckinpah directed. James Coburn plays Garrett and Kris Kristofferson plays Billy. The shoot was a fight from beginning to end. MGM president James Aubrey restricted the budget and the schedule, forcing reliance on local Mexican crews. Technical failures caused expensive reshoots and the cast and crew came down with influenza. Peckinpah's alcoholism and his clashes with Aubrey built his reputation as difficult. The production ran 21 days behind and 1.6 million dollars over budget. Bob Dylan came in through Kristofferson, initially only to write the title song. Peckinpah, who did not know his work, heard him play and hired him on the spot. Dylan wrote the entire score, including Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The fight over the cut went the same way. Peckinpah's 124-minute preview impressed Martin Scorsese, who called it Peckinpah's greatest since The Wild Bunch. Aubrey forced it down to 106 minutes. The truncated theatrical version failed, taking 2.7 million dollars in rentals against a 4.6 million budget. Contemporary reviews were largely negative, though Kevin Thomas defended it as perhaps Peckinpah's best and most mature work. The 1988 video release of the preview version began the reappraisal. Criterion put out multiple cuts together in 2024. Who it is for: viewers interested in the late Western and in what studio interference does. Who it is not for: anyone indifferent to which version they watch. Here the cut changes what the film is saying.