The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

"Divine Laws and the Statutes of the State of Texas... What's this doing here?"
"For the whores to piss on".

A great western from the pen of legendary screenwriter John Millius that features a suitably crusty lead performance from Paul Newman. Between Millius and director John Huston you have a pari of mythmakers working to subvert the genre in a crazy, comical way that shows the west in a light both nostalgic and slightly grotesque. It's a little bit similar to Paint Your Wagon (without the singing) in that it shows the birth, growth and eventual corruption of a town over time, and does it in a fairly animated and humoured way.

Roy Bean (Newman) is a wandering gunman who mosies on in to an isolated whorehouse near the lawless boundary of Mexico and Texas. The whorehouse takes great delight in robbing him and kicking him out, but when Bean inevitably returns he flushes the brothel out like a nest of feral rats and becomes a hero to the nearby hispanic villagers for doing something about the American scum who have infested their country. It goes to Bean's head and, armed with a Texas lawbook, he styles himself as the judge and law of the area afterwards, bringing his own unique brand of civilisation to the community.

There's a supreme sense of irony in the way that Bean builds his little kingdom in the west... despite being a petty criminal himself he comes to represent justice, though his practice of hiring outlaws to bring in and exploit other outlaws feels a lot more like organised crime. From his shakily-gotten gains he begins to build a town, and the whole thing feels a bit like a highly subversive metaphor for America's own beginnings as a nation (though shrouded in enough humour and sepiatic detail to not offend). That said, there's no getting past the way The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean makes a mockery of institutionalised law. It certainly doesn't like a coincidence that the opening part of the musical theme that accompanies Newman's character echoes Nino Rota's Godfather theme!

Despite its high entertainment value, I think the film does suffer a little bit from over-egging. A lot of the characters come and go, and the film starts out by showing some of these colourful supporting players talking into the camera to tell us about the way their story intersects with that of "legendary" Roy Bean, but Huston doesn't keep it up and this technique disappears about 30 minutes into the film. There's also an epilogue set about twenty years later that probably could've been tightened up a little. I did enjoy some of Huston's quirky flourishes - there's a bit where Bean shoots a massive hole in an infamous outlaw and the camera zooms in and freezes on the view through the hole. I also laughed at the image of Bean, his girl and the Watchbear playing and picnicking together whilst a nice song plays; a great parody of Newman from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That brings me to my favourite character in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean - the Watchbear. This is a grizzly bear (played by a real bear) that Bean hilariously adopts as the town mascot (and security guard)... Bean and the Watchbear become great friends, even drinking and arguing together. Their friendship even brought a tear to my eye, and the bear even has a symbolic purpose in that his demise represents the demise of the 19th century.

Judge Roy Bean is one of the great Newman roles - bearded, boastful, permanantly gruff, and hoarse from a failed hanging. The character has an amusingly flexible attitude to the law as well, arrogantly draping himself in the Texas flag as he plays god and reciting a piece of scripture from memory that changes more and more every time he gives a eulogy over the years. There's a great scene where Bean travels outside of his town to see his idol, the actress Lillie Langtree (Ava Gardner), and he's rudely shocked to realise that he has no power or influence outside of the world he has created. I also loved the end where Bean's status has grown to mythic proportions, "You're always here Pa: you and Ma and the Watchbear and Miss Lillie".

DIRECTOR: John Huston
WRITER/SOURCE: John Millius, loosely based on the real life Texan frontiersman - the self-appointed Judge Roy Bean.
KEY ACTORS: Paul Newman, Richard Farnsworth, Anthony Perkins, Ned Beatty, Tab Hunter, Bill McKinney, John Huston, Stacy Keach, Steve Kanaly, Victoria Principal, Jacqueline Bisset, Roddy McDowell, Ava Gardner

RELATED TEXTS:
- Judge Roy Bean, a 1950s television series also based on Bean's life.
- An early 1940s film, The Westerner, also features Roy Bean (played by Walter Brennan, who won a Best Supporting Oscar for it).
- Lillie, a television series based on the life of Lillie Langtree (and also featuring Roy Bean, her biggest and most famous fan).
- The 1990s TV series The Streets of Laredo had Ned Beatty playing the Judge.
- Similar revisionist westerns from the late 60s/early 70s include: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Paint Your Wagon and The Ballad of Cable Hogue.
- Other Paul Newman westerns include: The Left Handed Gun, Hombre, The Outrage, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Buffalo Bill and the Indians.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Song (Marmalade, Mollasas and Honey)
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Song (Marmalade, Mollasas and Honey) and Best Female Newcomer (Victoria Principal).