The Outlaw

A film more joked about than seriously considered after its notorious production problems (director Hawks walked off the set), censorship difficulties (centering on Jane Russell's cleavage), and Hughes' usual obsessive tinkering with details. By no means as bad as its detractors would have it, it remains a fascinating (if minor) Western with a determinedly offbeat story about Doc Holliday, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid coming to conflict over Holliday's stolen horse and half-breed Russell. Jules Furthman's script is often disarmingly tongue-in-cheek, Gregg Toland's photography is characteristically ravishing, and there is a quirky eroticism to the proceedings, manifest in Russell's performance and in some surprising undertones suggesting homosexuality.