Kid Blue *** (1973, Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Peter Boyle, Ben Johnson, Lee Purcell, Janice Rule) – Classic Movie Review 8536

Director James Frawley’s 1973 Kid Blue has a legendary cast that includes Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Peter Boyle, Ben Johnson, Lee Purcell, Janice Rule, M Emmet Walsh, Ralph Waite, Clifton James and Howard Hesseman.

Ben Johnson plays Sheriff ‘Mean John’ Simpson, who will not let young Texas train robber Bickford Waner aka Kid Blue (Dennis Hopper, actually 35 at the time of filming) go straight, in this interesting, peculiar, only partly successful ‘revisionist’ comedy Western with oddball messages about puritanism and the work ethic.

Kid Blue is fascinating, though perhaps not quite as amusing or exciting as it the makers think it is. It is set in 1902, with the Old West dying, and is full of modern Seventies dialogue that may be annoying to Western fans. But nobody could accuse it of not being its own thing. It was made nearly two years earlier and shelved by the studio 20th Century Fox, who were rightly worried about its box office chances and their $2,000,000 investment.

Also in the cast are José Torvay, Mary Jackson, Jay Varela, Jack Starrett, Warren Finnerty, Owen Orr and Richard Rust.

Kid Blue is directed by James Frawley, runs 100 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Bud Shrake (as Edwin Shrake), is shot by Billy Williams, is produced by Marvin Schwarz, is scored by Tim McIntire and John Rubinstein and is designed by Joel Schiller.

It was shot in Mexico from 15 November 1971 to 13 January 1972. Hopper was born on 17 May 1936. The film was first show in the US on May 1973, screened at the New York Film Festival on 29 September 1973 and released in the UK on 12 May 1974.

RIP James Frawley, who died on 22 January 2019, aged 82. He is remembered for The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Big Bus (1976) and for directing 28 episodes of The Monkees TV series (1966-68).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8536

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