SYNOPSIS: Doc Halliday and Billy the Kid have a running feud over a strawberry roan.
NOTES: Howard Hughes fired the original director, Howard Hawks, just over a week into shooting. It would be tempting to ascribe some of the film's more stylish shots to Hawks, but these are undoubtedly the work of Gregg Toland (whose next assignment was Citizen Kane). Some critics suggest that Hawks resigned voluntarily in order to accept an assignment to Sergeant York.
Film debut of twenty-year-old Jane Russell. (It was also the debut of Jack Beutel. But who cares about him? Not even we historians are quite sure how to spell his name. Whatever happened to him anyway?)
Ben Hecht wrote the original script for the Hawks version. How much remains after Furthman's re-working is open to question.
Originally budgeted at $440,000, this sky-rocketed into an unbelievable $3.4 million before the film was completed in November 1940. "Unbelievable" because there is no evidence of this money on the screen. Many of the interior sets are tatty and few exteriors justify the expense of locations near Yuma, Arizona. The line-up of players is not only sparse, but mostly second-rate. The film editing seems choppy and the music score ludicrously inept. On the whole, production values appear very much on a par with contemporary Monogram westerns.
Due to Hughes' all-stops-out publicity campaign (headed by ace publicist Russell Birdwell), aided by cleverly engineered run-ins with various censorship bodies, The Outlaw's domestic rental gross amounted to well over $4.5 million just from the 1950 RKO re-issue alone.
COMMENT: Despite Miss Russell, The Outlaw is not without appeal. Fortunately, she doesn't enter for twenty minutes, and then promptly disappears for a similar length of time, before finally swamping the proceedings altogether with her inexperienced (and none too flatteringly photographed) presence. Admittedly, Miss Russell possesses an undeniably youthful sultriness, but her harsh voice and amateurish acting do much to undermine this superficial attraction.
Although The Outlaw has now been adopted by the university crowd, who see all sorts of significant themes and synergetic (whatever that means) relationships in Furthman's script, for the rest of us the focus of interest is Walter Huston. While he is on screen, his tongue very firmly in his cheek and a mischievous twinkle in both his eyes, the film has a wry fascination, despite the hokey dialogue and wooden stooging contributed by sullen Jack Beutel.
Huston is such a master of parody, he manages to carry Beutel, but when Jack finds himself alone or with Jane, the result is sheer, utter boredom (even during the scenes that all the original censors raised Cain about).
Also with little to offer, Thomas Mitchell unexpectedly proves that without a good script and good direction, he's a total washout. For some reason, he opts to play his role almost straight and his comedy comes over as forced and heavy-handed.
As an actor's director, Hughes is undoubtedly inept. He has failed to gain the confidence of his young stars. All the more credit to Jane that she was able to live down this gauche debut.
NOTES: Howard Hughes fired the original director, Howard Hawks, just over a week into shooting. It would be tempting to ascribe some of the film's more stylish shots to Hawks, but these are undoubtedly the work of Gregg Toland (whose next assignment was Citizen Kane). Some critics suggest that Hawks resigned voluntarily in order to accept an assignment to Sergeant York.
Film debut of twenty-year-old Jane Russell. (It was also the debut of Jack Beutel. But who cares about him? Not even we historians are quite sure how to spell his name. Whatever happened to him anyway?)
Ben Hecht wrote the original script for the Hawks version. How much remains after Furthman's re-working is open to question.
Originally budgeted at $440,000, this sky-rocketed into an unbelievable $3.4 million before the film was completed in November 1940. "Unbelievable" because there is no evidence of this money on the screen. Many of the interior sets are tatty and few exteriors justify the expense of locations near Yuma, Arizona. The line-up of players is not only sparse, but mostly second-rate. The film editing seems choppy and the music score ludicrously inept. On the whole, production values appear very much on a par with contemporary Monogram westerns.
Due to Hughes' all-stops-out publicity campaign (headed by ace publicist Russell Birdwell), aided by cleverly engineered run-ins with various censorship bodies, The Outlaw's domestic rental gross amounted to well over $4.5 million just from the 1950 RKO re-issue alone.
COMMENT: Despite Miss Russell, The Outlaw is not without appeal. Fortunately, she doesn't enter for twenty minutes, and then promptly disappears for a similar length of time, before finally swamping the proceedings altogether with her inexperienced (and none too flatteringly photographed) presence. Admittedly, Miss Russell possesses an undeniably youthful sultriness, but her harsh voice and amateurish acting do much to undermine this superficial attraction.
Although The Outlaw has now been adopted by the university crowd, who see all sorts of significant themes and synergetic (whatever that means) relationships in Furthman's script, for the rest of us the focus of interest is Walter Huston. While he is on screen, his tongue very firmly in his cheek and a mischievous twinkle in both his eyes, the film has a wry fascination, despite the hokey dialogue and wooden stooging contributed by sullen Jack Beutel.
Huston is such a master of parody, he manages to carry Beutel, but when Jack finds himself alone or with Jane, the result is sheer, utter boredom (even during the scenes that all the original censors raised Cain about).
Also with little to offer, Thomas Mitchell unexpectedly proves that without a good script and good direction, he's a total washout. For some reason, he opts to play his role almost straight and his comedy comes over as forced and heavy-handed.
As an actor's director, Hughes is undoubtedly inept. He has failed to gain the confidence of his young stars. All the more credit to Jane that she was able to live down this gauche debut.