Bean rides into Vinegarroon, Texas in 1890, and is promptly beaten, robbed and hanged by degenerate outlaws and whores
The rope breaks, and he returns, shooting everyone in revenge
Then he declares himself "the Law West of the Pecos," makes the saloon his courthouse, and swears to uphold the honor of his ideal, the beautiful British actress, Lily Langtry
He takes Marie, a Mexican girl (Victoria Principal), as his mistress, and administers justice by hanging men and confiscating their property to make the town (renamed Langtry) prosperous Eventually, the community turns against him, and Bean rides out, defeated
Twenty years later, in 1925, the town is run by Prohibition gangsters and evil oil men Out of nowhere, Bean, now seventy, appears and purges the town by shooting the criminals
In a sense, Newman comes full circle from his first Western, in which Billy the Kid also said, "I am the law," and fought evil by becoming judge, jury and executioner But whereas Billy was a neurotic, pitiful adolescent, Bean is presented as an admirable, mystical character
The film tries to make Bean another lovable character on the order of Butch Cassidy: he hangs and shoots men while quoting the Bible and delivering wisecracks, and he punctuates their deaths with punch lines
Newman's funniest scenes are with a huge bear named Bruno, who, like Bean, is grizzly, guzzles beer and deals violently with outlaws; at one point he delightfully evokes Bean's wrath by drunkenly licking Lily's poster In William Wyler's "The Westerner," Walter Brennan as Bean upstaged Gary Cooper; here Bruno upstages Newman In any case, the outrageous gallows humor and broad caricatures fail to disguise the fact that unlike Butch, Bean is a vicious fellow
He takes Marie, a Mexican girl (Victoria Principal), as his mistress, and administers justice by hanging men and confiscating their property to make the town (renamed Langtry) prosperous Eventually, the community turns against him, and Bean rides out, defeated
Twenty years later, in 1925, the town is run by Prohibition gangsters and evil oil men Out of nowhere, Bean, now seventy, appears and purges the town by shooting the criminals
In a sense, Newman comes full circle from his first Western, in which Billy the Kid also said, "I am the law," and fought evil by becoming judge, jury and executioner But whereas Billy was a neurotic, pitiful adolescent, Bean is presented as an admirable, mystical character
The film tries to make Bean another lovable character on the order of Butch Cassidy: he hangs and shoots men while quoting the Bible and delivering wisecracks, and he punctuates their deaths with punch lines
Newman's funniest scenes are with a huge bear named Bruno, who, like Bean, is grizzly, guzzles beer and deals violently with outlaws; at one point he delightfully evokes Bean's wrath by drunkenly licking Lily's poster In William Wyler's "The Westerner," Walter Brennan as Bean upstaged Gary Cooper; here Bruno upstages Newman In any case, the outrageous gallows humor and broad caricatures fail to disguise the fact that unlike Butch, Bean is a vicious fellow