The Scene With Chill Wills, Dylan and the Beans

Sam Peckinpah made one exquisite all-time-masterpiece ("The Wild Bunch," yep)and some other great ones, and stayed visionary and artful all the way to the alcohol-fueled, drug-stoked broken-down end. Many of his later movies looked like they were made by a drunk with a meat cleaver for film editing (they were), but they ALL had the blood of their maker flowing through them.

"Pat Garrett" has its own mythology in the destroyed-making of (Peckinpah had substance abuse problems and a Satanic adversary in M-G-M scumbag President James "the Smiling Cobra" Aubrey, who had ruined many movies already and was out to break Peckinpah's will and wreck this movie in a variety of ways -- Robert Redford swore he would not do "The Sting" if it were made at Aubrey's M-G-M, btw)

But I digress.

"Pat Garrett" in whatever form it is now is like a linear rag-tag collection of weird, deadpan scenes, some brilliant, some not-so, some well-written, some not so.

But I LOVE this scene where Coburn's ultra-cool Pat Garrett just happens to come in when "bad guys" Bob Dylan, two more...plus Grand Old Character Guy Chill Wills...are all in a bar/general store together and Coburn determines that he must neutralize them all.

Coburn takes a seat at a card table...cool hat, cool moustache (he doesn't always have one in this movie), cool small cigar, and...generally cool James Coburn coolness (around this time, Coburn looked and sounded his best.)

Coburn directs Bob Dylan to do various things: (1) knock out one of his villainous comrades with a well-placed shotgun stock blow to the back of the head and (2) stand in a corner reading all the labels on a general store shelf of cans ("Beans. Pork and BEANS. " You ain't heard the words til you heard Dylan say 'em.)(3) Pull Chill Wills' hat down over his eyes so low that the guy looks like some kind of major league doofus.

Ah, Chill Wills. In the 50's and 60's, Chill had a kind of waaay laid back, good ol' boy coolness. He was a big fellah, but a well-put-together one. He had a voice like molasses flowing out of a bassoon.

And in "Pat Garrett"...he's a mess. Wearing a dirty shirt with no buttons at the BOTTOM, so his now-ample gut hangs out of his clothes buddha-like, Chill Wills in "Pat Garrett" lets out a continual stream of language in Coburn's direction fouler than anything he EVER got to say in, say, "Giant" or "The Alamo" (for which he was Oscar-nominated.)

So at a certain point, you've got this medium long shot of Cool Coburn stage left, Chill Wills with a hat over his eyes and his exposed gut-flesh hanging out talking a continuous stream of gutter-mouth, with Bob Dylan in the background reading can labels (with bookish eyeglasses)in the corner ("PEAS. Fruit and beans.") Plus some intense-looking hombre sitting across the card table who just may have to have a showdown with ol' Coburn.

And you're looking at this magnificently weird and off-kilter scene, and you're thinking:

"Whoa. Peckinpah was gonzo on this picture...but he still sure had SOMETHING going on."

P.S. After the big shootout finale to this scene, Wills gets a last line to Coburn. Wills, stunned by the gun noise and still blindfolded by his own dumb-looking hat over his eyes: "Yuh made me have a bowel movement. I'll get yuh if its thuh last thing I do."