BILLY TWO HATS

UK, 1973, 99 minutes, Colour.
Gregory Peck, Desi Arnaz Jr., Jack Warden, Sian Barbara Allen, David Huddleston.
Directed by Ted. Kotcheff.

Billy Two Hats - audiences still expect their Westerns action-packed. The psychological or character Western has to prove itself quickly to be accepted otherwise it is in and out of the theatres and on the TV sales list. Probably the fate of this film! Directed by Ted Kotcheff (who made Wake in Fright), starring Gregory Peck as a Scots bank robber, Desi Arnaz Jr. as a part-Indian and Jack Warden as a bigoted sheriff, the film has action but also some interesting themes of relationships, Western justice, racism. Filmed with beautiful Israeli desert locations for the West the film is not outstanding, but has much to commend it as a thoughtful and entertaining Western.

1. Did you enjoy this western. Did its plot and treatment seem real? How symbolic a western was it? - relationships of family, father, son, wife? The presentation of the frontier and man lost in the frontier? The migrant and the native boy and their clashes? The racist themes?

2. How well did the film use ordinary western conventions of outlaw, Indian., sheriff, chase. raids. deaths? Did the film enhance the conventions in its use and treatment of them?

3. What did the Israeli location photography add to the film? The style of desert landscapes, the sense of isolation within the desert?

4. How did the opening create tension for the film? The focusing of attention on shooting, on the character of Deans? Did the tension remain throughout the film? and this focus on men and shooting?

5. How interesting a character was Deans? For insight into a man in the west? His outlaw background and robbery background, his Scots nationality and his yearning for the green of Scotland, his skill in the west, his father relationship to Billy, his escaping and coming to rescue Billy? Why? The importance of his being wounded, his ingenuity in eluding the sheriff, his desperation to get away and for Billy to escape? His handling of the Indians and his family finally being destroyed by them? The significance and meaninglessness of his death? His living on in Billy's memory?

6. Was Billy an attractive and interesting hero? As a young man, as a half-breed in the west. his silence and dignity, his being used in robberies, the attitude of the law against him. his being humiliated as a prisoner, being hated by the white sheriff? The contrast with Deans' helping and rescuing him? His dependence on Deans for rescue. Deans' dependence on him for eluding capture? The irony of his not watching for the sheriff? The fact that he was involved with a young girl and not watching? The consequences of this? The ugliness of his being beaten and audience response to this? The compulsion to help Deans? The same compulsion of shooting the sheriff? What future would he have? Esther? Was he intelligible as a character in the west and in these situations?

7. How striking was the presentation of Guillet? As a lawman and obsessed? Brutal in his abuse of the law? His hatred of the half-breed? His despising of him even when the half-breed was praised by Copeland? His continual humiliating and bashing? The inevitability of his death? Was it merited?

8. Copeland and his isolation on the farm. his admiration for the half-breed. the way he shared in the pursuit with Gifford?

9. The presentation of Spencer and his wife? Life on the isolated farm and the risk of death? The relationship between husband and wife? The inevitability of her leaving him and going with Billy? What insight into the hard life of families and work in the west?

10. What comment was being made on whites and half-breeds by the presentation of the Indians? Their foolishness with the clothes and parasol? Their drunkenness? Their being bought off? Yet their fear and cruelty? What made them like this? Did the film show them as victims of white man's exploitation and therefore murdering was their justice?

11. How important were the action sequences? The torture of Spencer and the seige under the cart? The violence of death and shooting? As a just portrayal of the west? The impact of death in this film as part of the expectations of the west? The significance of Billy's shooting through the scarf?

12. What values of humanity, behaviour, relationships, dependence. hatred? Was this