Roger Ebert once praised this forgotten Jeff Bridges Western for its charm

New Hollywood movement The late 1960s and 1970s allowed talented young writers and directors to work in unexpected variations on the most tried and true types of media. Almost every week brought something new and confusing to the nation’s cinemas (provided you live in a big city). As this cultural revolution raged through the turbulent 1970s, the old guard of movie stars found themselves replaced by the likes of Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, and the late Robert Redford.

One actor who seemed destined for major movie stardom was Jeff Bridges; He has high sex appeal as Duane in Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show,” but the co-captain of the lousy high school football team is a very vulnerable young man with questionable prospects. There’s something strange about Duane, and this strange quality applies to most of Bridges’ best performances brought to life.

Fresh off his appearance in The Last Picture Show, Bridges gave two of his best performances in 1972. One was in John Huston’s Fat City, where he starred as Ernie Munger, a promising young boxer who soon becomes clear he’s not going to make it. The other arrived in “Bad Company,” Robert Benton’s directorial debut (Co-writer of “Bonnie and Clyde” (director of “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Nobody’s Fool”), he challenged our sympathies as an opportunistic, misfit young Western outlaw named Jake Ramsey. Both are rough and well-crafted gems, but “Fat City” is practically a New Hollywood masterpiece by now. “Bad company” doesn’t get the same degree of respect (Although Roger Ebert was an early fan). Why is Western revisionist work still considered secondary?

When Robert Benton died five months ago at the age of 92, I was struggling to understand his career. He played with genre conventions early in his career with the likes of “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Bad Company” and “The Late Show” but then was bitten by the prestige bug. “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Places in the Heart” and “Nobody’s Fool” weren’t outright Oscar bait, but at least they were solidly produced films.

I kept coming back to “Bad Company,” vividly shot by the great Gordon Willis, and dominated by Bridges as an outlaw legend constantly undermined by his newfound naiveté. Jake is not a young man to be feared; He’s a kid in over his head, you clap behind his ear and tell him there’s a lot of honest work for a brat like him. Yes, Jake and his friend Drew (Barry Brown) survive, but they’re not evil or cunning enough to last long. At the conclusion of Bad Company, there’s that final shot of the freeze in Wells Fargo Bank The end of the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” In the opposite direction. They’ll get the money, but it’s hard to believe there won’t be deputies lined up with guns as they try to escape. These boys are dancing around the edge of their graves. Maybe they’ll get a chance or two, but no one will spread their legend because there’s no story to tell. That’s why it’s great that Benton and Newman chose to make this outlaw classic.