Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Historical accuracy takes a pretty significant hit in this Western, but that shouldn't affect one's enjoyment of the film. As he did a handful times in his career, Paul Newman portrays an Old West character bringing order, progress, civilization and peace to the self appointed one horse town of Vinegarroon, Texas, and he doesn't care who he has to kill to get it. The film relies on quite a few one shot cameos of actors who show up only to be gunned down or hung by Judge Roy Bean (Newman). The most outrageous of these occurs when albino Bad Bob (Stacy Keach) rides into town gunning for the Judge. I like to think that Bean's reaction to Bob's insults provided the inspiration for a similar scene in 1995's "The Quick and the Dead".There's also the running story line of Bean's infatuation with actress Lily Langtry who he never gets to meet, though the picture's finale affords a sentimental reaction from the character portrayed by Ava Gardner. Earlier in the story, Snake River Rufus Krile (Neil Summers) had the distinct misfortune to desecrate a poster of Miss Langtry for which he paid dearly. That was a scene to rival Bad Bob's undoing.Victoria Principal made a notable movie debut here as a Mexican senorita who nursed Bean back to health following his first unfortunate encounter in Texas, ultimately moving in and providing him with a child before her tragic end. Following a whirlwind flash forward of twenty years, Jacqueline Bisset picks up the slack as Bean's daughter Rose desiring to keep his legacy alive amid an oil boom ushering out the final days of the Old West.Considering the colorful life of the real Roy Bean, I'm sure many Western movie fans like myself would welcome a modern, more accurate treatment of the legendary judge dispensing law West of the Pecos. I'd certainly look forward to experiencing old time justice as the handmaiden of the law, or vice versa depending on the circumstance.

Phantly Roy Bean (c.1825–1903), a West Texas saloon keeper, Justice of the Peace, and the self-proclaimed "Law West of the Pecos," was a colorful rogue whose tall tales and bizarre judicial antics became the stuff of Old West legend and folklore. Hollywood made two westerns about Bean before Huston's, one good, the other not so good: William Wyler's 'The Westerner' (1940), which earned Walter Brennan a Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar as Judge Bean, and Budd Boetticher's forgettable 'A Time for Dying' (1969). Screenwriter John Milius ('Jeremiah Johnson') has always subscribed to the advice tendered by the newspaper editor in John Ford's 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962): "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Unabashedly choosing myth over factual history, Milius created a surreal, broadly comical script that played up the apocryphal reputation of Bean (Paul Newman) as a remorseless and arbitrary "hangin' judge" (the real Roy Bean never hanged anyone). Milius also exercised great poetic license regarding chronology. Roy Bean arrived in Vinegaroon, Texas in 1882 (when he was already 57), founded the nearby town of Langtry in 1884, served as justice between 1882 and 1902 and died in 1903 at the age of 78. In the movie, Bean arrives in Vinegaroon eight years later, in 1890 (and is only 35 at the time), is driven out of Langtry c.1905, and returns in 1925 (age 70) to clear the town of miscreants one last time. Presumably, Milius pushed Bean's life ahead 25-30 years in order to contrast the exuberant lawlessness of the Old West with the more sinister, corporate criminality of the Prohibition era: a revisionist trope already well exercised by Peckinpah, Altman, and other advocates of the anti-western. Though John Milius was disappointed with the film realized from his screenplay—but not with the record $300,000 he was paid for it—John Huston liked the movie, and Paul Newman considered his understated rendition of Bean one of his better performances. Critics panned the film and box office was only mediocre at best. VHS (1999) and DVD (2003).

The life of the real Judge Bean was more interesting, at least as how it is recounted on Wikipedia, and if Wikipedia is true, then episodes of the movie go directly opposite events of the real Roy Bean's life.The scene where Paul Newman orders the hanging of a criminal who doesn't think he has done anything wrong for killing a Chinese man? The real Bean made up that law himself as an excuse to release an Irish murderer from his crime - by saying that his law book ruled against killing human beings- not Chinamen.The first man Bean ever killed was a Mexican "desperado," according to Wikipedia. At 41, he married an 18 year old Mexican girl and then was convicted of assaulting her in their marriage, which eventually led to a divorce after 4 children.No, the real Judge Bean didn't sound at all like a person worth mythologizing, at least not THIS way, except as an example of misbehavior and notoriety - a far cry from this boring, lazy, star-vehicle movie with a truly reprehensible script that does a disservice to history and to our intelligence.The only real interest this movie has is as a historical document and as an excuse to ogle the famous actors of the time - Paul Newman, Ava Gardner, a young Victoria Principal, who all play shallow, 2 dimensional characters.

A lot of people seem to think any undiscovered film - or any movie nobody's heard of starring actors who later became great - must be some sort of misunderstood classic that's simply fallen by the wayside for no other reason than a glut of more recent/more popular movies on the market. While that is occasionally true... I think more often than not, most 'forgotten classics' arrived at their current state because they DESERVE to be forgotten. And "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" is definitely one of those cases.The 60s and 70s produced some truly awful westerns, and we can thank God those decades didn't produce many. This (fictionalized? who knows?) version of the Judge Roy Bean legend has moments of pure tragedy, such as Bean's trip to see Miss Langtry. It has moments of mesmerizing beauty - all of Victoria Principal's screen time. And it has its unique moments of ursine comedy (you never mix bears, beer and glue!) But taken as a whole, and with the inclusion of many off-kilter multiple-character voice-overs - and other commentaries delivered STRAIGHT AT THE CAMERA, sheesh! - "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" puts itself squarely in the MISS THIS column.So do yourself a favor and pay no attention to those commenters posing as ultra-cultured film fans, mining the vaults of unknown genius and praising a "hard to find" movie. (Did I mention it's neither lost NOR rare? I got my DVD for five bucks at a certain Mr. Walton's general store.) Voting nine or ten stars for this mess?? Get real... I have a feeling that, 30 years in the future, those same voters will be waxing rhapsodic about Sci-Fi Channel weekly movies from the late 1990s.