Billy Two Hats is a 1974 American Revisionist Western film directed by Ted Kotcheff. It tells about a Scottish outlaw Arch Deans (Gregory Peck) and his young half-Kiowa partner Billy (Desi Arnaz Jr.) who have just robbed $420 from a bank while killing a man in the process. They are chased by Sheriff Henry Gifford (Jack Warden) as they try to make it to the Mexican border.
Billy Two Hats provides examples of the following tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Deans succumbs to his wounds, but with Gifford and Spencer dead as well, Billy and Esther ride off together.
- Commonality Connection: Esther chooses to go with Billy because of this.Billy: It ain't gonna be easy bein' with me, things like they are.
Esther: I can't remember when things were easy.
Billy: Well, that makes the two of us. - Dark and Troubled Past: Esther reveals that she doesn't have any kin, and her life was worse than before she was picked up as a Mail-Order Bride by her abusive husband. Her green curtain, to which she sometimes talks to, is the only thing she brought with her.
- Debt Detester: Discussed. When Gifford tries to make sense of why Deans would come out of his way to rescue Billy, Copeland suggests Deans owed the young half-Kiowa a favor and didn't want to remain beholden. Gifford dismisses the idea since he doesn't believe a man like Deans would feel beholden to anyone, least of all a "breed".
- Dirty Coward: The four Apache bandits are depicted as the type who want to play all the cards in their favor. Though they could overpower Deans and Billy upon first meeting them, none of them want to take the risk of dying in a direct confrontation and later ambush Deans and Spencer. After they manage to mortally wound Deans at the cost of two of them, the remaining two flee when they spot Gifford, Billy and Esther approaching.
- Disappeared Dad: Billy doesn't know anything about his white father other than he was somehow important since he had two hats, one for special occasions and one for everyday use.
- Domestic Abuse: Whenever Spencer's wife Esther starts stuttering in her distress, his solution is to slap her.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Gifford assumes Deans won't come rescue Billy because there's no honor among thieves and is utterly confused after he's proven wrong. When Copeland suggests Deans feels indebted to Billy or is simply fond of him, Gifford rejects the idea of any white outlaw liking or feeling indebted to a "breed".
- Half-Breed Discrimination: Billy is disdainfully called "breed" by Sheriff Gifford.
- Loveable Rogue: Both Deans and Billy are rather friendly outlaws who have standards and avoid killing people if they can help it.
- Mail-Order Bride: Esther was bought by Spencer from St. Louis.
- Naughty Birdwatching: While Billy is using Deans' spyglass to keep watch over Spencer's ranch, he catches a glimpse of Esther when she's bathing topless.
- Parental Abandonment: Copeland had a child with his squaw, but he forced her to give it to her people living in a reservation.
- Protagonist Title: Billy Two Hats is the full name of one of the Loveable Rogues.
- Saloon Owner: Copeland, a retired buffalo hunter, runs his own saloon at his remote trading post.
- The Savage Indian: The four Apache bandits who demand whisky from Billy and Deans end up killing Spencer as well as mortally wounding Deans while trying to rob them.
- Tagline: "Against the odds, against the law... against the land itself."
- Too Dumb to Live: Spencer, believing that Native Americans don't fight in nighttime for religious reasons, decides to try to sneak past the Apache bandits when it gets dark. Deans points out that these Native Americans don't appear to be religious, but Spencer goes anyway and gets killed.
- Was It Really Worth It?: Gifford makes this question to the dying Deans who refuses to answer since he sees no point wasting his last moments arguing with Gifford.
