Classic Westerns

The Outlaw (1943)

Director: Howard Hughes
Actors: Jane Russell, Jack Buetel, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston
Runtime: 111 min.

Howard Hughes' fabled film about Billy the Kid (Jake Buetel) and Doc Holliday (Walter Huston), their competition for the attention of a woman named Rio (Jane Russell), and the pursuit of Billy by sheriff Pat Garrett.

Trivia: This movie launched Jane Russell's career. She went on to become a Hollywood star in films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Walter Huston (Doc Holliday) won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) was an uncredited co-director of this movie. The making of this film was memorialized in a sequence in 2004's The Aviator. The Outlaw was considered scandalous for its time as Howard Hughes designed a special cantilevered bra to enhance Jane Russell's figure. The focus on her bust as well as its prominent display on the posters promoting the movie resulted in it being banned by censors when it was first completed in 1941. It later saw a limited release in 1943 after some of the offending footage was edited out.