YOUNG BILLY YOUNG

US, 1969, 89 minutes, Colour.
Robert Mitchum, Angie Dickinson, Robert Walker, David Carradine.
Directed by Burt Kennedy.

Young Billy Young is a light western from Burt Kennedy who specialises in small westerns, especially comedies like The Rounders & Support Your Local Sheriff. He can be serious in such films as Welcome To Hard Times or The Deserter. This particular example is a take-it-or-leave-it, enjoyable kind of western pitting elderly Robert Mitchum with young David Carradine. Angie Dickinson supplies the glamour. One striking feature is that Robert Mitchum sings the title song. A passably enjoyable and humorous western.

1. Was this a good western, enjoyable? How ordinary and conventional? In what aspects? Did it use any of the western conventions in an original and striking way?

2. How serious a western was this? In tone and themes? Comment on the light touch of the film? The humorous touch? The impact of the initial song and Robert Mitchum's singing? The fact that the film was a ballad and had a ballad style? The conventions of the ballad contrasting with straight narrative?

3. How central to the film was Billy Young? The initial impact at the shootout, the plot and the killings? Billy as a drifter and his self-opinion as rotten? Billy as a picture of the heritage of the American West? His skill. shooting and violence. capacity for escape and survival? Billy as a gambler and shooting? The effect of death on him? Sense of justice? The importance of the impact with Kane? The generation gap? The hostility and the support? His loyalty, discovery of the truth about Kane the clash with Jesse? His supporting Kane? The fact that he became the Marshal at the end? What insight did the film give into western characters like Billy? Young western heroes?

4. How was Kane the centre of the film? The importance of his background as a gunfighter. law man. bounty hunter? The rugged individualist in the west? Rescuing the young man? The father and the son figure? His sense of justice? The importance of his memories and the flashback style? How strong was the motivation of his vengeance? His fighting? His relationship with Lily? How important was it for him to achieve his vengeance at the shoot out? What judgment did the film make on this? How real was the ending with his marrying Lily?

5. Comment on the film's portrayal of the west: soldiers and raid, outlaws and drifters, the life of the towns and the saloons, gambling, law and order, powerful families and brutality? The violent west?

6. The comment of the film on the families and their power and their ruling the towns? The way they owned people? Behan and his running the town? The Boon family and family loyalties? Jessie, and his loyalty to Billy Young?

7. The importance of the character of Lily? Angie Dickinson's style? The conventional good-time girl with the heart of gold? Her importance for the plot? The ending?

8. The significance of the fights and the shooting?