Kid Blue (USA, 1973) 100 min color DIR: James Frawley. SCR: Bud Shrake. PROD: Marvin Schwartz. MUSIC: Tim McIntire, John Rubinstein. DOP: Billy Williams. CAST: Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Peter Boyle, Ben Johnson, Lee Purcell, Janice Rule, Ralph Waite, Clifton James, Jack Starrett, M. Emmet Walsh, Richard Rust, Howard Hesseman. (20th Century Fox)
The few who bothered to review this little-seen western have remarked that its star Dennis Hopper is too old for his role. Yes, at 37 years old, perhaps he is a bit long in the tooth to be playing “a kid”, but in the Old West, the term “kid” was used as more of a slang term than merely as a reflection of someone’s age. In this oddball western, Hopper is the unlucky outlaw Kid Blue, who decides, after a hilariously bungled train robbery in the opening scene, that it’s time to lead a normal, civilized life. He decides to settle down in this town whose main industry is a huge factory at the outskirts that employs (read: exploits) Native Americans. Kid Blue befriends a married couple (Warren Oates, Lee Purcell) whose fortune has derived from the factory. Out in Hell’s half acre, Kid Blue also becomes friendly with a crackpot inventor (Peter Boyle) who is working on a curious device that can make a man fly! Nonetheless, he is constantly taunted by a sheriff (Ben Johnson) who is convinced “the kid” is up to no good. In one bar fight scene, we see just how dangerous this lawman is. Alas, Kid Blue realizes that this thing called civilization isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. His attempts at domesticity are foiled, usually by his own ineptitude. Oates and Purcell attempt to turn him into an aristocrat (literacy seems to be the key to the upper class), but he instead has a fling with the wife. His wild behaviour still comes out, even in a no-brainer job of sweeping up hair in the barber shop. He ends up working in the factory with the Natives, and his co-workers are light years from his romanticized version of the American Indian. Finally, Kid Blue makes a last gasp at trying to capture his idea of the western outlaw, by recruiting a ragtag team of fellow workers to pull off a robbery. The movie’s ambiguous ending may seem like a cheat, but as one more thinks about it, one more realizes how sensible it is. The war between the young and old, the civil and the savage, just rolls on.
Originally published in Vol.#1, Issue #14 (“Back to the 70s”), in the article, “Once Upon a Time in the West”, about westerns released in that decade.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.