Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

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lerin o^an c By HELEN LOUISE WALKER BILLY, the Kid, lives again! The suave, dapper, handI some, soft-spoken youth who lived and killed in the days of our grandfathers' boyhood. The lad who had murdered twentyone white men and innumerable Mexicans and Indians ("who didn't count!") before he died a violent death upon his twenty-first birthday. Legend made him a sort of American Robin Hood, back in those days when little boys carried "penny thrillers" to school inside the covers of their geography books. Legend said that he robbed the wicked rich to give to the virtuous and deserving poor, and that he never killed a man without a good and sufficient, not to say a noble, motive! Tales of his winning smile, his gallantry to women, his generosity to the downtrodden and his kindness "to the little ones" endeared him to that sentimental generation. His skill with guns and with horses, and the neatness with which he foiled his pursuers fed the imagi nations of adventure-hungry little boys Johnny Mack Brown is portraying this strange character in a big, "super-special" production for M-G-M. King Vidor is directing and months have already been spent in shooting "on location" in the very spots where Billy, the Kid, was wont to roam and steal and kill. His Gun Barks Again AND here is a thrill for the youngsters: Johnny is ^ using the very same gun which Billy carried! Bill Hart lent it to him and Bill declares it was bequeathed to him by the sheriff who shot the Kid to death in that last, fatal fight! "Even the officer who killed him liked him," Johnny says. "He regretted, all his life, that he had to be the one to do it. "It was very, very strange — the charm that fellow had for the folks who knew him. Because, really, you know — he was a no-'count, murderin' villain! I don't care what they say. That's what he was." Johnny Mack Brown Takes A Shot Or Two At Billy, The Kid Johnny has read all the existing records of the Kid's career of crime, in preparation for the r6le. "Why, when we were in Gallup, New Mexico, on location, we found some old folks who actually knew him. I went down to talk to them, and when I said soniethmg about what a thoroughly bad sort he was — they were ready to fight me! They were that mad ! " But he was a cattle-rustlin' horse-stealin', murderin' soand-so. He'd kill a man for a meal. He robbed and murdered poor Mexicans and Indians wherever he found 'em, and I reckon no one'll ever know, actually, how many white folks he killed. He's a Good Bad Man B UT because he had a nice gallant gestures, they make a hero of him. We've cleaned him up some for the picture, of course. We had to." Johnny looked pretty dashing, himself, with his thick dark hair all tumbled, a heavy, dark make-up on and a blue flannel blouse, buttoned rakishly under his chin — the sleeve torn, as if in a recent battle. "That bird just plumb had a screw loose somewhere," he went on, in a tone of pained protest. "I reckon there was a little excuse for him, though — his childhood being what 'it was. "You know, he was born on the East Side in New York. His father died while he was still a little shaver and his mother took him out to some little town in Montana, where she started some sort of a boarding house or hotel. "The Kid used to see two-gun men and gamblers around all the time and, like lots of small boys without much judgment, he thought it would be fine to be like that. Wild Bill Hickok — and birds of that feather, you know. {Continued on page gg) 58