Billy the Kid (DVD)

Bad blood is spilling over in Lincoln County: William Bonney has sworn revenge against the men who murdered his boss. Filmmaker King Vidor brought the bigger-than-life legend of Bonney -- Billy the Kid -- to the screen in a big way, using a rare widescreen process (unfortunately, wide prints are no longer known to exist) and filming some of the action in New Mexico locales known to the outlaw. John Mack Brown portrays the Kid, single-mindedly pursuing his vow of payback and eluding death several times (including a gun-blazing escape from a hacienda inferno). Would the Kid also elude Sheriff Pat Garrett (Wallace Beery)? The film's denouement undoubtedly delighted some moviegoers and riled others. The saddles and sidearms of a cowboy's stock-in-trade would serve Brown, then a newcomer to the Western genre, for years to come. From the mid-1930s into the 1950s, he was a mainstay of Western B-films and serials.

• western