The Cavalier daily :: Friday, April 20, 1973 :: University of Virginia Library

One might think that The
Life and Times of Judge Roy
Bean was simply another saga
of a colorful western character.
Don't be fooled. The
characters are so fanciful, the
images so poetic, and the
incidents so fantastic that the
whole experience is lifted
beyond the Western genre into
realm where true heroism is
possible because everything is
measured in absolutes, on a
scale ten times as large as life.

The film is the funniest,
most enjoyable to be made in
the last several years. Anything
and everything is possible,
acceptable, and funny in this
saga of the Old West legend
made over.

It consists of a series of
chapters from the life of the
man who brought Law and
Justice West of the Pecos.
From the arrival of the outlaw
Roy Bean to the beautiful shot
of the Texas desert seen
through a hole blasted in the
albino bad guy, the Original
Bad Bob by Judge Roy Bean's
shotgun to the final time we
see the Judge, rearing his horse
on the second floor balcony of
the burning Gass Gulch Dance
Hall and shouting "For Justice
and Lilly Langtry!" we are
treated to dozens of the most
fantastic characters and
situations ever shown, all
dominated by the incredible
Judge Roy Bean.

This is Paul Newman's best
performance, and his best part,
since Butch Cassidy. Judge
Roy Bean is a murdering, lying,
thieving, not-very-smart
hypocrite, but he believes so
much in his own righteousness
that his nobility is
unquestioned. Newman has
presented him as a raging
volcano, barely capped by his
belief in the Law and Justice.

Raw Power

Every moment he is on the
screen, one can sense the raw
power of the man, sense it not
merely because of what he
does, be it selling $25 beers to
rising from he dead to rescue
his abandoned daughter from
the evil gangster Frank Gass.

Giving credits for the
performances in Roy Bean
would take half a page. Every
single character, no matter how
short a time he remains on the
screen, is clearly and carefully
presented to the best comedic
effect. One can only mention
the few outstanding, and say
that those not mentioned are
not unworthy.

Antony Perkins plays the
Rev. LaSalle, who finds Roy
Bean after he has decided to
become a Judge, and shows
him the words of the righteous
while helping to bury the dead.
Stacy Keach is Bad Bob,
undoubtedly the toughest,
baddest, bad guy ever to
explode on the screen. Roddy
McDowall is Frank Gass, the
sneaky, insidious lawyer who
seeks to destroy the judge.

And there are the women.
His wife (Victoria Principal),
who is his angel of vengeance
and love. His daughter
(Jaquiline Bisset), who inherits
his character. And, of course,
Lilly Langtry (Eva Gardner),
who is Judge's one true love
and ideal.

And, of course, one cannot
forget Bruno, whose
performance of the Watch
Bear, the Judge's pet black
bear, is among the most
remarkable in the film. The
scene where the Judge and the
Bear stand at the bar, both
drinking beer, and discussing
Greek history, stands out as
the one that most truly
expresses the Judge's power
and personality.

Perfect Match

Many films have been made
with fantastic content and
ordinary images. Here the
images wrought by John
Houston perfectly match the
subjects in their fantasy and
expressive poetry.

He fills the whole breadth of
the screen with the Texas
desert. He broadens the
violence beyond belief, while
keeping it credible enough at
to laugh at. He uses the stills
tinted like old photographs to
show the appealingly absurd
innocence of these fighters for
law and order. Every
shot verges on, and finally falls
into, the poetic, Houston can
count Roy Bean among his
best.

Is this the stuff of which
fantasy is made? If by that you
mean absolute justice, good,
and evil; total belief in one
man's word above all else;
violence so beyond the cruel it is
colorful; and blind, arrogant,
ignorant nobility of soul, then
yes, of this is fantasy made.

And damn good movies.

(Now at the Cinema)