The writer of the youth-culture classic Two-Lane Blacktop joined with Peckinpah for this idiosyncratic treatment of the legend of Billy the Kid, soaked more in the mythos of its own time than Billy's actual milieu. Kris Kristofferson is the appropriately bedraggled Billy, moving from one commune-like bedroom to another while targeted by corrupt politicians and capitalist cattle barons, and followed by his friend Alias (Bob Dylan, popping up to lend counterculture credibility). James Coburn is the film's true heart; his weathered, jaded Pat Garrett is a man pulled both ways, an ex-outlaw who's joined forces with the devil to hunt down his ex-friend Billy, and who sees in the future only weariness and death. More nihilist than autumnal, reeking of Vietnam and Altamont, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid feels like the end: of Billy the Kid, of an entire American way of life, and even of Peckinpah, who was taken off the film during postproduction. We present a version that restores several crucial scenes that were cut without his approval.