I didn't know anything about this film, but was intrigued to see a young Paul Newman act in a Western. In some ways I wasn't disappointed. This film is a curio. It's surprising that Newman went on to have such a successful career.
The director seems to want to tap into the raw street angst of troubled youth that both Dean and Brando brought to screens in their most notorious films. This might have worked had the director strayed from a conventional shooting of a Western film, and chosen a subject matter less well known than Billy the Kid.
Instead the effect is somewhat jarring. The characters and their motivations are lost behind Newman's overly wrought Kid whose antics dominate every scene, and not in a good way.
Several occasions spring to mind. When the Kid meets his boss he talks and acts like a simpleton. And it's never explained why, and why he then grows in intelligence and maturity. It's just peculiar.
Then later he meets this journalist whom realised that the Kid is not the infamous character he has read about. Newman theatrically claws at a wall with emotion, before pawing the man. It makes the Kid look like a loon. Newman just looks like he's aping Dean and it's painful. Can't take your eyes off it, jaw droppingly awful.
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