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Monday, June 1, 2020

THE OUTLAW (1943)

Jane Russell made her busty film debut in a cantilevered bra designed by producer/director Howard Hughes. Cleavage & censorship delayed wide release for a few years, but also created lots of buzz, if not enough to earn out wildly inflated costs on this slightly deranged, seriously inept Western. Begun by Howard Hawks as a tricked out Billy the Kid fable, scripter Jules Furthman added Doc Holliday to the usual mix (Walter Huston guying every line) to join Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell having fits of jealousy toward both) and a surprise ‘happy’ ending. Hawks, after discovering fresh leads: Russell as well as Jack Buetel, his willowy, young Billy (pretty as the slim hipped gals Hawks tended to marry or cast in his pics), left after a week’s shooting, handing it over to the interfering Hughes. And take over he did, on his second, and mercifully last, directing gig. Slathering Tchaikovsky over every longing glance when he wasn’t forcing composer Victor Young to Mickey Mouse every tiny gag. Luring cinematographer Gregg Toland into frame-breaking push-in close ups of youthful lust; amid his general all-thumbs staging of the risible action & dialogue as Russell, Huston & Mitchell preen for Billy’s ‘attentions.’ Berserk or betraying Hughes’ true callings? It might be campy fun at half the length, but at nearly two hours, it drags something awful. Russell eventually figured out how to come across on screen, after her features firmed up, but poor Jack Buetel was a goner from the start.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Lines like ‘Best you gotta cut his clothes off,’ as Russell moves in on sickly, supine Billy or ‘Shall we pull on the last cuckoo,’ before pistols are drawn must have been added to help get this one banned in Boston for the sake of publicity.

DOUBLE-BILL: Hughes' only other directing gig was the WWI aviation epic HELL’S ANGELS/’30, with Edmund Goulding & James Whale handling most of the Early Talkie dialogue scenes & Jean Harlow getting the sexy dish career push treatment.

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