Movie review - "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" (1972) **

I think John Milius was a hard writer to film - at his best he wrote in such a big flamboyant style, that he needed characters and handing to match. Milius the director was never up to Milius the writer - he never quite conveyed visually the grandiosity of the scripts. Francis Ford Coppola got it right in Apocalypse Now but he's one of the few. (Just like Brian de Palma is one of the few directors to do justice to the operatic nature of David Mamet's writing.)

I can understand why they would have thought John Huston was ideal to direct The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean - like the central character, Huston was a rogue, a womaniser, a teller of tall tales. But the film he turned in is a sober, buttoned down version, with Paul Newman miscast in the lead. Oh he gives a nice enough performance, hitting all his marks, even being quite effective in the quieter moments - but he's still Paul Newman. You never believe he was an outlaw, or would grow a big beard, or be a megalomaniac. Huston himself actually would have been a better choice.

The plot consists of a series of vignettes - Bean's arrival in town, his revenge on the people who try to kill him, hanging murderer Tab Hunter (an effective performance), meeting reverend Anthony Perkins, getting a bear from John Huston, cavorting with said bear and beautiful Victoria Principal while a song plays on the soundtrack in a scene that throws back to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, taking on an albino gunman (Stacy Keach in perhaps the best bit in the film), knocking out Roddy McDowall, trying to visit Lily Langtry, losing Principal. 

The final act, where McDowall becomes an unconvincing villain and Bean/Newman returns to help his daughter, the not terribly American Jacqueline Bisset, feels very tacked on and is likely to try your patience - though I did like the epilogue with Ava Gardner as Langtry.

I get the feeling the filmmakers were torn about how "likeable" to make Bean. He needed to be compelling but he isn't. Victoria Principal is beautiful but it's a terrible role - pretty adoring simpleton who dies, like Debra Paget in Broken Arrow. There doesn't seem to be any real build - it's not about bringing justice is it, since Bean is mostly lining his own pockets.

I should add though, the script was a lot of fun to read, and some people love the movie. I just didn't enjoy much watching it.