MovieChat Forums > The Left Handed Gun (1958) Discussion > Significance of the Hurd Hatfield charac...

Significance of the Hurd Hatfield character Moultrie

posted 17 years ago by mlraymond
9 replies | jump to latest

I would like to know what other viewers think about this character. He appears a number of times at significant moments in Billy the Kid's career, ranging from Billy whooping it up in a saloon, playing the music machine, to Billy gunning down Sheriff Brady and Morton, to Moultrie crashing Pete Maxwell's party, to appearing outside Billy's jail cell with a basket of gifts, to witnessing Billy's death, after telling Sheriff Pat Garrett where to find the Kid. He seems to be a sort of Old West groupie, star struck by Billy's supposed glory, with an underlying suggestion of a homosexual attraction. There is an unmistakeable reference to the New Testament account of the death of Jesus Christ, with Moultrie as the Judas figure who betrays Billy/Christ to the authorities, after becoming disillusioned with him.

Any thoughts about this, or the movie in general, Arthur Penn as a director, etc?

And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him

[–] mcfaddensflats 17 years ago

Whenever I see this film I have been puzzled about Hatfield's role. Some of it I guess is underlining the distinction between the "real" Billy and the one who had been created by the dime novel accounts written by people like Moultrie. Pat Garrett's "Authentic life of Billy the Kid",which was far from "authentic",was ghost written for him by a man like Moultrie called Ash Upton. I always regarded Hatfield's character as being a kind of Ash Upton under another name(though as far as I know Upton never had anything to do with Billy personally,though he played a big part in creating the popular legend of Billy the Kid). "You're not like the books",or something along those lines is how Moultrie expresses his disillusion about him to Billy.

The last time I saw the film I considered some possible "gay" subtext too. Neither in this film,or in real life is there any indication that Billy himself was anything but heterosexual. But there may be a homosexual angle to Moultrie dogging the Kid's steps. Also they chose a homosexual actor,Hurd Hatfield for the role. Hatfield was a good actor,but not very prolific in movies,suggesting they may have gone out of their way a little to get a "gay" actor for the part. This may be an indication of a subtext which had to be pretty well buried in 1958.

In a way,Hatfield here sort of reminds me of the equally odd role played by Joseph Wiseman in Kazan's "Viva Zapata". One is never sure exactly what his character is about and in the end I think,like Moultrie with Billy,he betrays Zapata.The Judas/Jesus idea may be more apt than a homosexual one. Billy disappoints his allies/friends,who have read into his character things that aren't there. But Garrett as well as Moultrie plays a sort of "Judas" role as well here.

Moultrie is really the one non authentic personality in the movie. All the others were real people involved with Billy. There was no Moultrie I know of who popped up in the kid's life like this. Or anyone like him under another name.Obviously he was put in there for some reason. I don't know how far Penn's film reflects the Billy play Gore Vidal created. Is Moultrie in there or did they add him for the movie? It may point back to the gay matter again if Vidal originally created Moultrie.

[–] harry_maskers123 16 years ago

just watched this yesterday and quite enjoyed it. Any homosexual subtext I think is brought by the actor rather than the charactor and the way that he plays his obsession (something we se with modern celebrites). Thinking back it wazs his scenes I enjoyed the most though and he stole the show each time he was in shot.
It felt so strange at the end when he is disappointed in the kid- he says he's the one who has sent accounts back to Boston of him, the myth was largely his responsibility!

[–] pjwoodall1 10 years ago

Interesting piece of casting. Hatfield's most famous role was in Dorian Gray in 1944. Angela Lansbury provided part of the commentary for the DVD.

[–] allenrogerj 14 years ago

The Outlaw by Howard Hughes/Howard Hawks also has a gay subtext- not very sub, either! And there are certainly gay elements in Pat Garrett andBilly the Kid, so perhsps it goes with the story. I'd guess that Moultrie was left over from the original T.V. play. At that time plays were shot live so people accepted deliberately artificial characters like Moultrie to tie the plot together.

[–] masonjud 15 years ago

I think the Hatfield character represented The Media (of that day) -- and the rush to glorify and often mythologize a character (in this case Billy the Kid) to sell papers and magazines. The media raises "celebrities" to glory, and then destroys them when they don't measure up to the created myth. Same thing happens today.

[–] nataloff-1 14 years ago

The developments in this thread exemplify how film scholarship works. Every contibutor is right on the money as of his or her place in the dialogue.

Moultrie is a character invented by Gore Vidal and polished by Leslie Stevens, producer Fred Coe, and director Arthur Penn. His purpose is indeed to reflect how the media (and the larger society) builds up a hero and then destroys him when he no longer suits their needs, either by betraying their presumptuous hopes or by simply ignoring them. Hurd Hatfield purposely played the character as being attracted to Billy, causing the Production Code Office to write the studio, “We are quite concerned with the character of Moultrie [Hurd Hatfield] whose reactions to Billy sometimes seem erotic and possibly effeminate.” This led to the cutting of a scene in which a despondent Moultrie is given liquor by a manipulative Garrett and breaks down in sobs as if he's losing a lover rather than someone he can write about. Vidal was upset with the film version and managed to reaquire the rights years later so he could produce his own iteration through TNT.

(I just wrote the book on Arthur Penn, which is how I know the above)

[–] Hey_Sweden 12 years ago

Lots of great insight and information on this thread; for a fictional character, Moultrie came off as perhaps the most intriguing character in the movie for me.

[–] Errington_92 11 years ago

Considering the theme of violence in The Left Handed Gun was shown as a destructive element of society, Moultrie symbolises the audiences' expectations of violence in Westerns. Westerns have always had the element of violence to separate good from bad. In the case of The Left Handed Gun, all the violence justified or not was reflected upon in terms of emotion and consequence. Moultrie like many Western fans saw violence and the men who engaged in such acts as thrilling and interesting characters. When Moultrie saw the real Billy the Kid as an angry, confused young man his vision was shattered and the audience would have realised the essential difference of The Left Handed Gun.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

[–] pjwoodall1 10 years ago

The religious angle is hammered home, especially when Newman assumed the "crucified" position.