Dirty Little Billy (1972) User Reviews

What a punk

[Oliver-50 · 7/10 · 26 December 2004]

Forgotten little western about young slacker Billy arriving in the West from New York and not wanting anything to do with his father's crop-work. After being banished by his father he wanders aimlessly through town and finds a mentor in the town outlaw Goldie. Not the Billy the Kid story were familiar with; Billy is a dirty, chubby-cheeked kid who doesn't have a care in the world and gets shaky every time he attempts to fire a gun. The film has a terrific feel to it with grainy brown and black colors. Dirty is an appropriate word for the ambiance of the movie. Not much story per se, but the film is well acted especially by Pollard who looks and acts as though he is a rabid puppy. Some jarring moments of violence and a terrific ending. Worth a look if you're a western fan.

*** out of ****

a great indie film when they were not popular

[crivera_ojo · 7/10 · 26 March 2005]

It is not a typical western in that it does not intend to glorify gunfighters. This movie felt like part of a documentary since the sets seemed so realistic and the characters were very credible.

The movie seems to be made with a tight budget, whether that is the fact or not I don't know. I also loved the violent scenes, fights, gun-play and so on.

Even though most western movie fans know the outcome of the life of Billy the Kid, the outcome does not seem predictable the way Michael Pollard plays the character.

I also loved the character of Lee Purcell (Berle), she was amazing and very credible. Though her character displayed a displeasing picture of violence against women she also was able to show the strength and character of the woman in the film (Berle).

I definitely recommend it, if you are tired of seeing those puffed up and testosterone injected westerns we are all used to seeing.

The other end of the spectrum

[TxCracker · 6/10 · 7 June 2003]

Watch Dirty Little Billy back-to-back with Young Guns for a testimonial to how little faith you can place in Hollywood to give you an accurate portrayal of history.

In the latter we have William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, portrayed as the fastest, cleverest, most ruthless and domineering youngster ever born...a boy capable of shooting it out with a dozen experienced gunfighters and living to tell about it. Then, in the former, we have the very same William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, now portrayed as this skinny little punk with his hands wrapped in bandages because farm work is too rough on his delicate skin. He follows his hero, Goldie, around obsequiously, and trembles like he's giving birth to porcupines whenever he's got a gun in his hands.

So which one is accurate? Neither, of course; they're both Hollywood characters. They're both historical B.S., just like almost every other movie ever made about any other famous person who ever lived. I'm sure the real Billy the Kid fell somewhere far in between those two portrayals. No human being that ever lived could have survived all those gunfights that super-bad Emilio Esteves won so easily. (must be kin to Sylvester Stallone), just as a sissy like Michael J. Pollard could never have survived for two days as an outlaw in the Wild West.

But, is the movie good? Yeah, for entertainment value it's O.K. I guess, but my being an old fart that saw it at the drive-in, back in '73, may have something to do with that opinion. (It came on Encore Channel last night, which is why I'm writing this) I also kind of enjoyed Young Guns, even though I had to roll my eyes alot at the ridiculosity of it all. (It IS a word...I just invented it)

If you're a teenage badass wannabe, you probably won't like this flick. It will make you feel uncomfortable as you spot your own sad little weaknesses in Pollard's character. Someone like you is better off fantasizing that you're Vin Diesel, while you watch Fast and Furious or something equally low-brow and gangsta-oriented.

Hidden gem?

[matthew-54 · 21 May 2001]

I haven't seen this film for some years, but it made quite an impression. My memory of the plot is sketchy, but I remember a pungent sense of place and the black humour of re-presenting an outlaw hero as a dysfunctional teenager. Michael J Pollard was "hot" in my mind due to his showing in Hannibal Brooks. He certainly went for broke with his portrayal of Billy as a bumbling and baffled (retarded, even?) teen in a Wild West that is knee-deep in mud and horse-muck. The pistols Billy wielded seemed almost too big for him, huge, clumsy and old-fashioned. Certainly as a impressionable British youngster, I'd never seen anything like it before.

I'm more than pleased to encourage others to seek it out. It could well be a bit of a hidden gem - the flavour and satirical energy of the piece are surely in tune with today's tastes.

Prairie juvenile delinquent

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 2 June 2016]

A whole lot of people have played Billy The Kid on screen and their personas have formed one mixed image. Off the top of my head I can think of B picture cowboy stars Johnny Mack Brown and Buster Crabbe, movie star idol Robert Taylor, method actor Paul Newman, Rhodes scholar Kris Kristofferson, and brat packer Emilio Estevez. But scruffy Michael J. Pollard is probably closest to what Billy actually was. It also gave Pollard his only lead in a film.

Of course this too has nothing to do with the facts. Dirty Little Billy concentrates on his formative years compressed as they would be for anyone who died short of his 22 birthday. It starts with his arrival in New Mexico Territory with his mother and stepfather and ends with some of his first recorded killings.

Our Billy is a kid from the mean streets of New York and he's got an aversion to the hard work it takes to be a pioneer. No farming, no business trade, but Pollard does like hanging around the saloon with some new friends Richard Evans and Lee Purcell.

The Lincoln County War, Pat Garrett all this comes a bit later in the life of our prairie juvenile delinquent. Pollard is always interesting and quirky be it a Disney film like Summer Magic or with outlaw legends of a more modern era like Bonnie And Clyde.

Dirty Little Billy is one unique Mr. Bonney.

Probably closer to reality than we'll admit

[drdblb · 7/10 · 8 February 2009]

Gritty, grimy life on the frontier. I'm a history buff that concentrates on the personal causes of why people do what they do. Alienated New York teen, cultural shock, with cold, judgmental father and smothery mother, it's easy to see how Billy could fall in the loop of Goldie & Berle who listen and nurture him albeit perversely. The cool, well adjusted characters of the Golden Age of Hollywood Westerns, in their sanitary, back-lot sets likely bore little resemblance what the true west was like. In the same line, serial killers,(basically what those outlaws were) then as now, are troubled little wimps who validate themselves by destroying others. We may all enjoy Emilio Esteves'"Young Guns" portrayal of the slick shootist defying all odds, history's reality of the true Billy, such as the ambush shotgun slaying of Bob Ollinger,is closer the the character morphed from Michael J. Pollard's trouble interpretation. It was interesting to see the Italian Replica Walker Revolver converted to fire cartridge blanks. I wonder if this was the same prop used in True Grit & Outlaw Josie Wales, all movies of roughly same era,.

Pollard too old.

[gccmoore-2 · 6/10 · 2 May 2009]

Pollard was 33 when he made this movie. Billy the Kid was only 22 when he was killed - much later - in New Mexico. I'm not sure just how old Billy the Kid was when he moved west, but I remember reading something about him being in El Paso when he was only 13. I'm somewhat of a Billy the Kid student. I think he was best characterized in Young Guns - not that it was a historical truth, but it did seem to capture him. Paul Newman, certainly, did not play a believable Billy the Kid. I wonder just how many people have played Billy the Kid in films. It would be interesting to name them all and try to rate their roles. Anybody out there who wants to give that a try?

Everyone is Dirty

[aimless-46 · 5/10 · 26 March 2005]

Back in the ancient 1970's, only the high budget pictures had production designers. The others had to rely on the cinematographer to make sure the art director, the set designer, and the make-up/costume people were all on the same page; so that the picture had a consistent look. Ralph Woolsey was one of the better cinematographers at keeping all these elements under control. He was a busy guy in 1972 and two of his pictures were westerns: "Dirty Little Billy" was made right after "The Culpepper Cattle Company"- arguably one of the top ten westerns of all time. And while "CCC" is significantly better than "DLB", they share beautiful cinematography and production design (may have literally shared it because they probably used the same stuff in both productions).

It became popular after Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (1971) to replace the well-scrubbed Roy Rogers look and portray the west as dirty, dusty, gritty, unshaven, and tattered. Woolsey eagerly embraced this realism and gave us two of the grimiest features we are likely to see. Perhaps the most entertaining thing about "DLB" was the casting of Lee Purcell as the seediest looking western heroine of all time. Compared to "Berle", Susan Tyrell's saloon gal "Alma" ("Shoot Out") was a tidy sorority girl. You might expect this look from Barbara Hershey, but Purcell was deservingly typecast as prissy/demure so the movie is worth a look just to imagine her inwardly cringing each time she had to make an appearance on the set.

The story itself is extreme historical distortion, but so moronic as to render itself harmless. Still, it is puzzling that they bothered to give it the appearance of being history, as it would have worked fine as fiction. It has a nice surprise ending and several soon-to-be-famous-in-television actors; Mills Watson would go on to great things as bumbling Deputy Perkins in the many "Sheriff Lobo" programs and Dick Van Patten would play father "Tom Bradford" on "Eight Is Enough".

Where the heck is a DVD of this??

[Steve_Nyland · 8/10 · 12 April 2005]

This movie is brilliant, and like another commenter states, presents what is probably a pretty close approximation of what it was like to be in a tumbleweed nowhere in 1880 or so. Michael J. Pollard is probably best known for his appearance on that Star Trek episode with the Grumps & the kids who never grew old, and by golly if he does not appear to have aged a day between 1967 and 1972, perfectly cast as a "revisionist" presentation of America's most famous juvenile delinquent, Billy the Kid.

After quickly realizing that farming is for the birds, a newly arrived Billy goes trudging into town and winds up in the nowhere's only saloon, which has been more or less commandeered by the local town misfit/wayward punk name Goldie (young Richard Evans, acting like he has snorted one too many Kiddee Whippets), a dimwit who has happened to come into the possession of a six shooter and more or less refuses to leave his place at the bar ... for about a week. As the grown ups (including recognizable faces like Willard Sage and the great Charles Aidman) muddle about in the manure & ankle deep mud outside and try to reason with the oaf, Billy grows more and more fascinated with the sheer power that having a pistol brings to the clueless fool, and over the course of several days becomes a sort of "gofer" for the brute and his likewise power dazed homespun squeeze in the form of the town whore (gorgeous Lee Purcell, who's speech about a cold winter is one of the most effective moments by an actor/actress trying to create the impression that they live in a different time than the viewers).

The three share some thrills, chills and bellyaches (including a trip to the back room for Billy & Ms. Purcell that results in the movie's funniest line, and a truly brutal knife fight following a card game gone bad that costs a supporting actress one of her ears!!) before being coerced into leaving by the threat of violence, leading to tragedy, death and cold blooded murder that happens in a manner that is mundane, unsationalistic, powerful and wounding to watch. You can understand why Billy became the merciless killer of legend after his ordeal, with the film ending on a twisted high note as he & Goldie celebrate his first mass murder of some lowlife scum who are even scummier than Billy & Goldie.

And as other commenter's have noted, the aspect of the film which leaves the biggest impression is how grimy, soiled, unwashed, grungy, muddy, manure-splattered, cold, wet, damp, uncomfortable and inhospitable the movie makes the wild west look, even though the bulk of the film is set inside of this god forsaken, claustrophobic, unkempt and dingy "saloon", which is more like a shack with a couple of hand sawn tables & some crooked chairs that don't seem to sit square on the floor. Everything looks cobbled together, overused, weather beaten and about to fall apart -- There are no Singing Cowboys in this film with rhinestone studded guitars and horses with first names. It is a bleak, dismal and cramped looking film, and yet it is actually rather life affirming to watch and witness Billy changing from a rather slow, half awake schlemiel into a ruthless & calculating gunfighter, wielding a pistol that looks about two sizes too big for him and managing to actually hit his targets with alarming accuracy.

Seek this movie out: I managed to capture a screening off TBS years ago during a Cowboy Matinée Afternoon special or something like that, and while cut for content it's still one of the most effective US made Spaghetti Western influenced "adult" westerns made -- that meaning a film using western themes as it's departure point rather than a Cowboy Movie about Doc & Hoppy riding herd or having shootouts at old corrals. This is a western as post-modernism, using the conventions of the genre to create a new form and managing to do so brilliantly, even while not appearing to have accomplished much at all on initial inspection. And like most films that are more interesting than the hot new garbage media companies expect us to buy, there is no home video release or DVD available, probably having to do with the rights to the film's fascinating musical score, one sequence of which is played entirely by a wind-up bell chime machine as an ingenious Juke Box precursor.

What's even more remarkable is that director Stan Dragoti made exactly five other films during his career, the most recognizable being LOVE AT FIRST BITE with George Hamilton, MR. MOM with Michael Keaton, and the notorious SHE'S OUT OF CONTROL with Tony Danza lusting inappropriately after daughter Ami Dolenz. Maybe not the most sparkling portfolio, but his percentage of masterpieces to movies made is pretty impressive.

***1/2 out of ****

A gritty and dirty take on one america's most notorious outlaws.

[b_kite · 7/10 · 1 August 2018]

"Dirty Little Billy" is exactly what it's title indicates, "It's Dirty". Michael J. Pollard of "Bonnie and Clyde" fame stars in a role which is pretty much tailor made for him. This movie takes everything you've learned of the legend and turns it upside down, portraying the kid as a dirty not all there gutter punk, who manages to wonder into a muddy hellish town and falls into good graces with a crazed saloon keeper. Most of the action is kept to a minimum, up until the end with most of the movie being a character study inside the saloon, but, what we do get is pretty cruel and unforgiving. If there ever was a definition of a Acid Western this would defiantly be it. The ending sets up the legend which we all would come to know, but, this is defiantly a fresh take on a common legend witch goes for the dirty and gritty and doesn't fall into the tropes of the usual far about the outlaw.

"Hell boy, you're stuck here".

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 21 November 2009]

My summary comment pretty much describes the way I felt watching this flick. Notwithstanding all the positive comments on this board, I found the film to be ploddingly slow, and virtually devoid of any interest. It didn't help that every scene was filmed in knee deep mud or suffocatingly dark interiors, and as I think about it now, it had the feel of one of those apocalyptic movies set in the far future where the landscape is almost devoid of sunshine or human contact. It didn't seem like there were any humans among the characters here either.

The positive I found after having seen a handful of Billy the Kid pictures, is that this one at least dealt with William Bonney's back story - to an extent. He was born in New York City's Lower East Side in 1859 as Henry McCarty, so seeing his father sign the deed to that ramshackle house in Coffeeville came pretty close to history. However, young Henry's father died BEFORE he and his mother moved West, so the scenes where he challenged the old man were a fabrication. Mrs. McCarty remarried William Antrim after arriving at Silver City, New Mexico, so there again, the scenes with Ben Antrim (Charles Aidman) also had some basis in fact. For his part, McCarty used a whole bunch of aliases once he arrived out West, including the name Antrim and Bill Bonney. It seems that for emphasis, Goldie (Richard Evans) kept calling him 'The Kid'.

As for Michael J. Pollard portraying Billy, maybe not the worst choice, but the way he played Billy was. The character seemed superficially dumbed down, and if this was the real Billy, he wouldn't have lived long enough to become the legend. No street smarts to speak of, he kept walking right into trouble at every turn. In fact, I kept waiting the whole story for Pollard to turn into Billy the Kid, and it happened in the final two minutes of the picture!

Here's something I thought about though. That scene where Dick Van Patten is trying to get his money's worth with Berle (Lee Purcell) was a jolt, but how about that conversation Billy had with Berle later on just before he got HIS chance. Berle states that she came from a family of eight, but she was the only one who survived. Right then and there could have been planted the seeds for a TV series five years later - "Eight is Enough".

The basis for any recommendation here lies in one's interest in the character of Billy the Kid, and a generally realistic approach to the way the grunge of the Old West is presented before electricity and paved roads. Personally though, if there was a smell quotient to this picture, it probably would have been totally unwatchable.

Low key rendering of the Billy the Kid saga.

[Hey_Sweden · 8/10 · 27 December 2014]

This offbeat Western tells the story of the legendary outlaws' younger years, when he moved with his parents to the country outside a town named Coffeeville. A lazy, bratty, sullen jerk, he doesn't help out with his fathers' daily routine and is subsequently banished from the farm. He wanders into the town, and encounters local toughs including big shot punk Goldie (Richard Evans), who takes Billy under his wing.

"Dirty Little Billy", indeed, is far from being a typical Western. Its deliberately very grimy look combines with a basis in a reality not to be seen in Hollywood treatments of the subject. It very much refrains from romanticizing the Old West, giving us a drab atmosphere that predates the vision seen on the TV series 'Deadwood'. Music (by Sascha Burland), art direction (by Malcolm C. Bert), and wardrobe (by Mickey Sherrard) are all first rate. There is some rather potent violence as we watch the tragic progression of Billy's life, as any possible innocence and naivety in the character just melt away.

Michael J. Pollard of "Bonnie and Clyde" fame does reasonably well in the title role, giving Billy some likability. However, he is outshone by the supporting cast. Evans is quietly effective as the young outlaw with his own way of doing things. Lovely Lee Purcell is both appealing and touching as Goldies' prostitute girlfriend Berle. She has one great scene with Pollard where she pours her heart out. Charles Aidman rounds out the main players as Ben Antrim, while a fair number of familiar character players have roles big and small: Mills Watson, Ronny Graham, Richard Stahl, Gary Busey, Dick Van Patten, Scott Walker, Severn Darden, Len Lesser, and Ed Lauter. Both Lauter and an uncredited Nick Nolte made their film debuts here; extremely prolific voice over artist Frank Welker has a rare on screen role as a young lowlife.

This interesting and very gritty take on the legend is definitely one that could stand to be better known.

Eight out of 10.

Pre fame mud and rags telling of Billy The Kid.

[hitchcockthelegend · 5/10 · 22 July 2018]

Directed by Stan Dragoti, co-written by Dragoti and Charles Moss, and starring Michael J. Pollard, Richard Evans and Lee Purcell. Music is by Sascha Burland and cinematography by Ralph Woolsey.

Dirty Little Billy firmly de-glamourises the Billy The Kid legend, well sort of. This is a portrayal of the infamous outlaw before he became just that. Film is telling of what he was before he made his first kill, his weak standing in society, his turbulent family life, and is tentative steps to making friends - where he is clingy extreme. The backdrop is one of mud and rags, there is no showy Wild West here, it very much operates as an Anti-Western, an independent picture firmly offering up a flip side to some of the legends printed as fact. Technically it is just ok, where things are strongly hindered by Pollard simply being too old. Asking a 33 year old man to play a teenager is a stretch, it is with much credit that Pollard gives it his all and nails at the least the village idiot side of Billy pre his fame.

Not a hidden gem by any stretch of the imagination, it does however show up a side to Billy The Kid not often told in the history of film and literature. Worth seeking out for that point of reference, but as entertainment or a viable Western film of note? I'm not sure. 5/10

Superb and strange version with M.J. Pollard!

[shepardjessica · 8/10 · 13 July 2004]

This realistic and harsh re-telling of the Billy the Kid myth is definitely worth anyone's time. Pollard is perfect as a none-too-bright Western punk who unfortunately became infamous. It stars the beautiful Lee Purcell and Gary Busey in a supporting role. Arthur Penn's Left-Handed Gun was very good and this is the second best version of that often-botched story of this kid.

Great and grungy cinematography, true-to-life costume design, interesting soundtrack and authentic western types in a downbeat, almost Cassavetes-like version of the tale. A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Michael J. Pollard. If you can find it, check this moody piece of Western Americana. One of Pollard's best films!

Outstanding revisionist Western

[mauryk2 · 10/10 · 21 March 2011]

I've been waiting 30 years to see it and Sony finally made it available on March 1, 2011. This movie totally de-constructs the myth of one Old West outlaw, Billy the Kid. It fictionally tries to show there was nothing glamorous about where he came from or how he developed into what he became. Pollard is perfect for the role. Lee Purcell is perfect in her role. Like so many others, I can't understand why she didn't become a bigger star. The early West was a mud hole. Every character in this movie is physically dirty including the usually beautiful Ms Purcell. The movie also hints that maybe outlaws weren't bigger than life but the opposite.

A punk with the biggest revolver I ever saw takes over the saloon in the middle of this wretched town. Everyone's afraid of a crazy with a gun. He takes Billy under his wing.

This movie is an antidote to the standard Hollywood & TV Western of the Fifties into the early Sixties.

True Aesthetic Spirit of the Old West

[dotcomthis · 10/10 · 7 June 2004]

This movie deserves kudos. It is a depiction of the Old West that is self re-enforcing in it's historical accuracy and aesthetic spirit. There is more truth in this picture than I've seen in 99.9 % of cinematic works I've seen. The main characters are uneducated ignorants who are the bad seeds in the territory. All of the standards of living available and the resultant eccentric TYPES encountered in the late 1800s for people in their circumstance are brought to light in a way accurate to that period. Of course, if you are unable to stomach gritty, raw dirt and grime reality then this picture may not be for you. But one of the coolest movies I've ever seen.

not your typical western

[wabash-to-jupiter · 4 July 2018]

Totally loved this film. the acting was fantastic, especially lee purcell, but michael j pollard did a great job, too. it's an interesting film. billy's just a kid in this before he's the kid. it's grimy. we have these romanticized notions about outlaws, but this film doesn't romanticize them or life in the old west at all. it's quite raw, rough around the edges, but genuine. i have no clue why this doesn't have a higher rating?

the cinematography is stunning; the way light was captured balances out the grimness of the characters. the soundtrack matches the tone of the film. my main critique is that the plot of the movie could've been reworked. it doesn't really flow and at times, it seems like the actors were left to carry the story. all in all, surprisingly refreshing for a dark look at the wild west - it's not your typical western, but it's probably a lot closer to reality than most of us like to watch.

A good film which represents the "real" western way of life

[kienberger · 10/10 · 6 May 2002]

A good film which represents the "real" western way of life. Not the well-chosen "white-teethed" and "well-shaved" western hero. Not cold-blooded with a smashing big mouth. A film which impresses with its production design and its way to show the truth. Billy was not hero but a tragical person. The actors did their rolls very well and the director hat a lot of braveness to do a film not "main-streamed". A absolutely MUST-HAVE-SEEN-FILM.

I never knew Billy The Kid was a wimp?

[Thebobo. · 26 June 2003]

I am not big on Westerns but I always thought Billy The Kid was a cold-blooded killer. Not in DIRTY LITTLE BILLY. Instead we are treated to pug nosed Michael J. Pollard as the title character who is nothing more then a wimpy little punk. Don't get me wrong the film is not bad but don't expect to see the life of the real Billy The Kid here. In this rendition Billy is a gangster wannabe as he latches on to pimpdaddy Goldie (Richard Evans) and his hooker/lover Berle(Lee Purcell). One can't help to sense the homoerotic bond between Billy and Goldie. It is not a stretch to picture Billy becoming Goldies lover/hooker when Berle is killed in the climax. One interesting tid-bit here is that one of Berles customers is Dick Van Patten! Watching a bare chested Van Patten having sex with Lee Purcell was almost to gross to watch. To and insult to injury Purcells character then makes whoopie with Pollard! No wonder this poor actress never made it big. Can you picture her resume: Had sex with Dick Van Patten and Michael J. Pollard in the same scene!