Trailer
Plot summary
Pat Garrett rides into Old Fort Sumner, where William H. Bonney, whom everyone calls Billy the Kid, is shooting chickens with friends. Over drinks, Garrett tells his old friend that the county's voters want him gone and that he will be forced out once Garrett becomes sheriff of Lincoln County. Billy stays. Garrett's deputies surround the house where Billy has holed up with his gang, and a gunfight follows. Billy is taken prisoner and held in the Lincoln County Jail while a gallows is built nearby. Deputy Sheriff Bob Olinger taunts him, and Garrett warns Olinger to leave Billy alone.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dylan composed the score and songs for the film, most prominently "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", which were released on its soundtrack album the same year and nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of Best Original Score.
- Rumours about the shoot reached Hollywood, prompting Peckinpah to purchase a full-page ad in The Hollywood Reporter mocking them and the brass at MGM. The producers were not amused, and the film finished 21 days behind schedule and $1.6 million over budget.
- Peckinpah was eventually forced out of the production and Aubrey had the film severely cut from 124 to 106 minutes, so that it was released in a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members.
- Ebert noted that "no less than six editors are credited. Not assistant editors, but editors; this sets a modern-day record, I think." The editing was so haphazard, he asserted, that actors listed in the onscreen credits, such as Dub Taylor, did not appear in the version he saw.
- Told on set about Willie Nelson, Dylan called him up the next day, got him to come down to the set and made him play his old Martin guitar for ten hours straight; they ended up doing old Django Reinhardt tunes.
- Kristofferson was 36 when the film was made, playing the 21-year-old Billy, and his band played small roles along with his wife Rita Coolidge.
- Peckinpah initially considered Bo Hopkins for the part of Billy, but he eventually cast country music star Kris Kristofferson as the outlaw.
