Review of Dirty Little Billy (1972) by Mike P — 15 Apr 2009

This is director Stan Dragoti's only notable piece of work as a director, but what a rare achievement it is. "Dirty Little Billy" got lost in a wave of other revisionist Western's in the early 70s such as "Bad Company", "The Culpepper Cattle Co.", "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "The Hired Hand" and it's been collecting dust ever since and was never even released on VHS. This movie should be restored and released from limbo cause it's without a doubt one of the finest westerns of the 1970s. It's grim, violent, muddy and strangly comical. It might not be a historically accurate take on the Billy The Kid story but it's an unflinching meditation on adolescent debauchery, mischief, Sloth and the potential violent outcome of falling into bad company.The cinematography owes alot to Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and the movie has a bleak and claustrophobic atmosphere. Every single character in this film looks dirty and almost sick and the mud covers everything. Michael J Pollard gives the performance of a lifetime as a young wannabe who's drifted west from New York with his family but falls into bad company after refusing to work on the farm. He's the other side of Kris Kristofferson's Billy in Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid". He's far from handsome, he's a coward and he can't even use a gun. A punk in every sense of the word. "Dirty Little Billy" is worth tracking down just to behold Pollard's great performance.

I urge everyone who reads this to track down a copy of this hidden western gem. It's a slice of raw, ugly Americana.