''A Bullet for Pretty Boy'' is a 1970 American

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

from director

Larry Buchanan Larry Buchanan (January 31, 1923 − December 2, 2004), born Marcus Larry Seale Jr., was a film director, producer and writer, who proclaimed himself a " schlockmeister". Many of his extremely low-budget films have landed on "worst movie" lists or ...

. It stars

Fabian Forte Fabian Anthony Forte (born February 6, 1943), professionally known as Fabian, is an American singer and actor. Forte rose to national prominence after performing several times on ''American Bandstand''. He became a teen idol of the late 1950s ...

as gangster

Pretty Boy Floyd Charles Arthur Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934), nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber. He operated in the West and Central states, and his criminal exploits gained widespread press coverage in the 1930s. He was s ...

and co-stars

Jocelyn Lane Jocelyn "Jackie" Lane (born 16 May 1937) is an Austrian-born actress and model of the 1950s and 1960s. She was married to Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Early life Lane was born as Jocelyn Olga Bolton in Vienna, Austria in 1937. She ...

in her final performance before retiring from acting in 1971.

Plot

Oklahoma farmer Charles Floyd marries Ruby. At the reception, some goons insult Ruby and Charles attacks them. This results in Floyd's father and one of the goons being killed. Floyd is convicted of the crime and sent to work on the

chain gang A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was nota ...

. Several years later Floyd escapes from prison and takes refuge in a brothel run by Beryl, where prostitute Betty falls for him. Beryl's brother Wallace wants Betty for himself and starts to hate Floyd, giving him the nickname "Pretty Boy". The brothel is a hangout for Ned Short and his gang of bank robbers. Floyd joins them and becomes a full-fledged criminal. Floyd returns to Oklahoma to see his wife. They still love each other but she can't be with him because he is now a bank robber. He then goes on a crime spree with another member of the gang, an old friend called Preacher. Pretty Boy Floyd is eventually killed.

Cast

Production

Fabian was signed to make the film in June 1969. Filming took place entirely on location in Texas and was completed by October. The movie had the largest budget ever given to Buchanan. Buchanan later said his "cue" on the film was Woody Guthrie's 'The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd,' which examines the populist folk-hero angle of the outlaw. In particular, he was inspired by Woody's great line about how 'some men will rob you with a six-gun, and some will rob you with a fountain pen'." The film features

Morgan Fairchild Morgan Fairchild (born Patsy Ann McClenny; February 3, 1950) is an American actress. She began acting in the early 1970s and has had roles in several television series since then. Fairchild began her career on the CBS daytime soap opera '' Searc ...

in a small role as a gangster's moll. Buchanan later said "I gave her her first job" on the film. According to one account, halfway through the film AIP executives were worried about the movie being behind schedule and replaced Buchanan with

Maury Dexter Maury Dexter (born Morris Gene Poindexter; June 12, 1927 – May 28, 2017) was an American producer and director of film and TV. He worked several times for Robert L. Lippert and American International Pictures. Life and career Dexter was born i ...

.Mark McGee, ''Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures'', McFarland, 1996 p241 According to Dexter's own memoirs, he went on the film as executive producer at the behest of James H. Nicholson of AIP "to make sure Larry brought the film in on schedule and with some amount of quality." Dexter says that "the film went along without a hitch and Larry delivered a nice film" but that after it was put together to a rough cut Dexter and AIP "thought it was too slow and talky." He then took a small crew and returned to Dallas with stunt doubles and the actors "and shot several scenes involving action. We cut the new material in and we thought it helped the film overall."Maury Dexter, ''Highway to Hollywood'' p 134
accessed 5 July 2014

Songs

The group The Source sing the following songs: *"Bullet for a Pretty Boy" *"It's Me I'm Running From" *"I'm Gonna Love You ('Til I Die)" *"Gone Tomorrow" *"Ruby Ruby" As a solo artist in the 1980s, the lead vocalist of the Source, Richard Bowen, re-recorded another song from the Harley Hatcher sessions, "Phantom in the Rain," for another Larry Buchanan film, Down On Us, which served as an ersatz song by

Jim Morrison James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer, songwriter, and poet who was the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band the Doors. Due to his charismatic persona, poetic lyrics, distinctive vo ...

and

the Doors The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, comprising vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts ...

in that film.

Reception

The ''New York Times'' accused Buchanan of making "a murderous gangster movie full of mostly nice guys" which "looks a little as if they had taken the members of the cast of, say, ''

Beach Blanket Bingo ''Beach Blanket Bingo'' is a 1965 American beach party film directed by William Asher. It is the fifth film in the Beach Party film series. The film stars Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Linda Evans, Deborah Walley, Paul Lynde, and Don ...

'' and put them in costume and given them old cars to drive and told them to play it for real." The ''Los Angeles Times'' thought the film was "surprisingly free from gratuitous gore" but was still "another very pale carbon of ''Bonnie and Clyde''" in which Fabian "handles himself in competent fashion amidst a host of amateurs." ''Diabolique'' magazine later said:

Fabian gives another accomplished performance as a gee-it-isn’t-his-fault-kid-forced-to-crime. His physical attractiveness is exploited heavily in the movie – surprisingly few films did this considering Fabian became a pop star mostly by being good looking. Here he’s got Jocelyn Lane and Astrid Warner throwing themselves at him, as well as a brothel madam. The film itself is competent rather than inspired – it could have done with more passion – but isn’t bad.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bullet for Pretty Boy, A 1970 films 1970 action films 1970s biographical films 1970 crime films 1970s crime action films American biographical films American crime action films American International Pictures films Biographical films about American gangsters of the interwar period 1970s English-language films American gangster films Cultural depictions of Pretty Boy Floyd Films directed by Larry Buchanan 1970s American films English-language crime films English-language biographical films