Taglines: The Name Is Legendary. The Man Is Real.
Wild Bill Hickok, famed lawman and gunman of the Old West, is haunted by his past and his reputation. He is loved by, but cannot love, Calamity Jane. Dogging his trail is young Jack McCall, who blames Bill for abandoning the boy’s mother and destroying her life. McCall has sworn to kill Bill, and Bill’s ghosts, his failing eyesight, and his fondness for opium may make McCall’s task easier.
Wild Bill is a 1995 Western film about the last days of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok. It stars Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt and Diane Lane. The film was distributed by United Artists. It was written and directed by Walter Hill, with writing credits also going to Pete Dexter, author of the book Deadwood, and Thomas Babe, author of the play Fathers and Sons.
The script was based on several sources. One of them was the play Fathers and Sons which had been on Broadway in 1978, directed by Joseph Papp. It was written by Thomas Babe, and focused on Hickok’s last days in Deadwood, placing the action in the saloon where he was killed. Babe says he entirely made up the character of McCall, who he turned into Hickok’s illegitimate son. Babe’s play was seen in Los Angeles in 1980 by Walter Hill, who had been considering a film on Hickok. Hill optioned the play along with a screenplay about Hickok by Ned Wynn.
Meanwhile the team of Richard and Lili Zanuck had optioned a 1986 novel about Hickock called Deadwood. They had hired the author to write the script for the movie Rush. The Zanucks said they were interested in the project because it explored the nature of celebrity in a Western context. “Figures like Wild Bill were like rock stars,” said Lili Zanuck. “They had sex appeal.” Dexter wrote a script based on his novel which was sent to Barry Levinson and Sydney Pollack before going to Hill.
Walter Hill said that Jeff Bridges was “an actor I greatly love… a very nice man, decent, hard working, got along well, no problems” but that there “was always a kind of tension between Jeff and myself” because “Jeff does a lot of takes, I don’t. My focus is very intense, but when it gets to be you just doing it again and again I lose it and I find an awful lot of performers go stale. He would always have an idea he thought he could make something better.”
Hill wrote a script based on the play, the novel, and Ned Wynn’s screenplay. Hill says he took details of the town from the novel but the relationship between McCall and Hickok was mostly from the play. Hill took material from Dexter’s novel for the atmosphere of the town and relied on Babe’s play heavily for the third act, the last hours of Hickok. The Zanucks and Walter Hill took the script to John Calley, president of United Artists, and the film was green-lighted at the end of January 1995. Jeff Bridges and Ellen Barkin signed to star
Westerns revived in popularity in the early 90s with Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven. However some other Westerns had been box office disappointments including Wyatt Earp. Producer Richard Zanuck said, “If you make a good picture and have a compelling story to tell, it’s going to work. I don’t believe that any genre dies. It just has to be fed with good product.”
Wild Bill (1995)
Directed by: Walter Hill
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt, Diane Lane, Keith Carradine, Christina Applegate, Bruce Dern, James Gammon, David Arquette, Marjoe Gortner
Screenplay by: Walter Hill
Production Design by: Joseph C. Nemec
Cinematography by: Lloyd Ahern
Film Editing by: Freeman A. Davies
Costume Design by: Dan Moore
Set Decoration by: Gary Fettis
Art Direction by: Dan Olexiewicz
Music by: Van Dyke Parks
MPAA Rating: R for wild West violence and a sex scene.
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release Date: December 1, 1995
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