This Day in Western History: January 25th
THIS DAY IN WESTERN HISTORY 
Jan. 25, 1869: Pat Garrett leaves Louisiana
An excellent summary of the life and times of Pat Garrett – better known to history as the man who shot the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid- can be found at the History Channel’s website here (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pat-garrett-leaves-louisiana?catId=11).
Today, we’ll focus on one of the most underrated Western films of all time, Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Unique to the Western genre, the making, production, release and re-discovery of this classic is almost as gripping as the film’s subject.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid boasts some of the most intriguing names in early-1970s American cinema and popular music. James Coburn (playing Pat Garrett) had starred in The Great Escape and the two zany Derek Flint films, Out Man Flint and In Like Flint. Kris Kristofferson, as Billy the Kid, was a successful songwriter and singer (he wrote Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee” and Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning’s Coming Down,” for example) who was just making the transition to a film career. Jason Robards, a veteran of Western cinema (Once Upon a Time in the West) played Governor Lew Wallace, the man who assigns Garrett to hunt down Billy the Kid; Robards would soon win consecutive Best Supporting Actor awards for Julia and All the President’s Men. The rest of the cast was filled out with highly-regarded character actors including Richard Jaeckel, Chill Wills and Slim Pickens. Bob Dylan – at the height of his commercial appeal and critical success – was signed to do the music, and delivered a gold album as the soundtrack to the movie (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/pat-garrett-billy-the-kid-19730830?print=true).
Of course, at the helm of the picture was Sam Peckinpah, the celebrated director alternately praised and reviled for his violent, action-packed films like The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs and the Steve McQueen version of The Getaway. By the time filming had begun on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, however, Peckinpah was a mess – devastated by a divorce and plagued by alcohol troubles, he fought constantly with the film studio. Those battles, combined with an influenza outbreak on the set and constant technical troubles, made for a chaotic production; the studio ended up cutting 18 minutes from Peckinpah’s cut, turning the theatrical version into an utter mess. The film ended up flopping at the American box office.
It wasn’t until a late-1980s version of Peckinpah’s cut of the film was released by Warner Brothers that the film was rediscovered by the western-loving public. Now, the full version is considered as nothing short of a masterpiece, a rich and detailed look at two of the West’s most famous personalities bolstered by Dylan’s music, the performances of Kristofferson and Coburn, and Peckinpah’s remarkable direction. It’s a fitting redemption for one of the more fascinating Westerns of the 1970s and one of the greatest Western directors of all time.
If you want a more in-depth look at the film, “Senses of Cinema” has a good summary here. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/garrett_and_billy/