Bronco Billy

Infobox Film
name = Bronco Billy


caption = "Bronco Billy" movie poster
director = Clint Eastwood
producer = Dennis Hackin
Neil Dobrofsky
writer = Dennis Hackin
narrator =
starring = Clint Eastwood
Sondra Locke
Geoffrey Lewis
Scatman Crothers
Bill McKinney
music = Snuff Garrett
cinematography = David Worth
editing = Joel Cox
Ferris Webster
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = June 11, 1980
runtime = 116 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:7228
imdb_id = 0080472:For the early Western film star, see Broncho Billy Anderson"."Bronco Billy" is a 1980 film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and written by Dennis Hackin. The lead actress was Sondra Locke.

Plot

The film opens with a performance of Bronco Billy's Wild West Show, a run-down traveling circus. The show takes place in a large tent, with "Doc" Lynch (Scatman Crothers) as the ringmaster. First up is Chief Big Eagle (Dan Vadis), who performs a snake dance, accompanied by his wife Running Water (Sierra Pecheur). The snakes bite his lip. Leonard James (Sam Bottoms) entertains with some fancy rope twirling whilst lit only with ultraviolet light. The star is Bronco Billy McCoy (Clint Eastwood), the "fastest gun in the West." He demonstrates his riding and shooting skills. For the finale, a blindfolded Bronco Billy shoots balloons around a female assistant on a revolving wooden disk. For the last balloon, he throws a knife. However, the assistant's leg is nicked, so she quits. The show is not making any money; nobody has been paid for months. Bronco Billy has to browbeat everyone in the show to continue, although he does promise them that when they have money, they will buy a ranch and invite city kids out to learn how cowboys live.

The show moves on to a new town and Bronco Billy goes to city hall to get a permit. While there, he bumps into Antoinette Lilly (Sondra Locke) and John Arlington (Geoffrey Lewis), who are there to be married. Antoinette despises her future husband, but has to marry before she is thirty in order to inherit a large fortune. Afterwards, their car breaks down at the motel opposite the Wild West Show. Antoinette is so shrewish that the next morning, Arlington steals all her money and their repaired car. She is left to fend for herself.

Antoinette gets Bronco Billy to lend her change for a phone call, but the payphone malfunctions. She then asks him for a lift to the next town. He talks her into become his new assistant, "Miss Lilly", though she only agrees to do one show. On the way, they stop off at a convent, where Antoinette sees the charitable side of Bronco Billy's work. The show is unusually successful, although Miss Lilly draws the ire of Billy by not sticking to the script.

As she parts company with the show, Antoinette catches sight of a newspaper. Arlington has been arrested for her murder (framed by Antoinette's stepmother and her scheming lawyer friend, who stand to gain her inheritance). Seizing the chance to get even with Arlington, Antoinette rejoins the Wild West Show.

She discovers that none of the performers are real cowboys. They are mostly ex-convicts or alcoholics (or both). It turns out that Bronco Billy who was a shoe salesman who shot his wife for sleeping with his best friend. Bronco Billy has taught all the others how to perform their acts. Miss Lilly begins to warm to the people (and particularly to the leader).

Running Water and Big Eagle announce that they are going to have a baby. The crew goes to a bar to celebrate. Leonard gets himself arrested and is found to be a deserter from the army. Bronco Billy uses the show's meager savings to bribe the sheriff into letting Leonard go, but then the tent burns down. Everyone blames Miss Lilly for their bad luck, but Bronco Billy defends her and proposes that they rob a train. They try to do this in the standard Western way (riding alongside and jumping on), but a modern train proves to be resistant to such an approach and they give up.

Bronco Billy has another idea. They go to a mental institution where they have previously given free shows. The chief medic, who is obsessed with the Wild West, agrees to provide them with accommodation and to supply a new tent. The inmates are occupied sewing American flags, the new tent will be made of flags. Miss Lilly and Bronco Billy spend the night together. By chance, one of the inmates turns out to be Arlington (he had been paid by the crooked lawyer to confess to being mentally disturbed when he "murdered" Antoinette). When he sees her, he raises a fuss and gets himself released. Bronco Billy and the show depart without Miss Lilly.

Antoinette returns to a luxurious lifestyle, but she is bored and misses Billy. She takes a jar of pills. Meanwhile, Bronco Billy is getting very, very drunk. Running Water phones Antoinette, just in time to abort her suicide attempt.

It is show night. Bronco Billy has not found an assistant and believes that Lefty will be standing in. He is surprised and delighted when Miss Lilly steps out from the curtain.

External links

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