The Resurrection of Broncho Billy is a 1970 short film (23 minutes) directed by James Rokos.
Billy is a good-natured young man who looks to be fresh out of high school. He is living a rather melancholy existence, renting an attic room in some old lady's house, working a dead-end job as a hardware store. Billy avoids this sad reality by retreating into a fantasy world based on The Wild West, or, more accurately, the Wild West as Hollywood depicted it in The Western. Billy dresses himself up as a cowboy, chews toothpicks to look tough, and continually imagines himself to be a hero in an old western. Nothing of urban life in 1970 punctures his fantasy world: cars stuck in traffic become a lowing herd of cattle, an unpleasant encounter with his boss becomes a showdown with a villain, and a random encounter with a businessman on the street becomes a gun duel at high noon. Eventually it becomes unclear whether his fantasies are allowing him to escape from the world or preventing him from engaging with it.
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy was a student film made by Rokos and four of his friends at USC film school. One of those students was none other than John Carpenter, who got credit for the story (along with all the other four students), got credit as an editor, and also composed and performed the music. It was Carpenter's first film credit.
Tropes:
- '70s Hair: The woman Billy meets in the park has a big poofy '70s hairdo.
- The Bore: Billy's chance to make a connection with the attractive woman who sketched him in the park comes to a sudden end when Billy launches into an exceedingly boring lecture about costuming in old Westerns, causing the woman to abruptly get up and leave.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Billy drops into a John Wayne accent in a pathetic attempt to amuse the pretty artist in the park.
- Cosplay: Basically what Billy does all day, going out and about dressed in cowboy gear and imaging himself to be a hero in the Wild West.
- Cowboy: One of the highlights of Billy's day is listening to the droning old stories of some old coot who apparently was a literal cattle-driving cowboy back in the day, although his day was after the classic "Wild West" era (the old man says he was born in 1892).
- Cringe Comedy: Pretty dark comedy, but there's an element to this in Billy's continuing efforts to pretend that he's in a Western, and how the real world just won't collaborate. He imagines some dive bar as a Wild West saloon and says "Gimme some rye," but the bartender won't give him a drink because he doesn't have an ID. His fantasy of a gun duel draws nothing but bewilderment from the businessman who's his imaginary rival. And the girl in the park rapidly grows very bored with Billy's nattering about costuming in old Westerns.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Shot in a sepia-tone that recalls old photographs of the Wild West.
- Imagine Spot: After his talk with the girl in the park ends in failure when the girl gets bored and leaves, Billy has one of these. The film suddenly switches to color, and Billy, riding his horse, sweeps the girl (who's now in an old-timey pioneer dress) up onto the horse with him, and they ride off into the sunset together. The End.
- Monochrome to Color: The whole movie's in sepia tones until the Imagine Spot at the end where Billy, on horseback, sweeps up his woman and gallops away. That part's in color.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: Naturally, the bartender at the dive bar Billy enters is cleaning a glass.
- Riding into the Sunset: Billy, riding off into the sunset on his horse with his woman. Of course, he's imagining it, and it's really rather melancholy as Billy remains lost in his fantasy world and unable to make connections with real people. But it looks cool.
- Shout-Out: Filled with shout-outs to Hollywood Westerns, from the posters that decorate Johnny's tiny little room to his endless blathering about how John Wayne or Gary Cooper carried themselves in westerns. Even the name of the movie is a shout-out to "Broncho Billy" Anderson, star of pioneering 1903 Western The Great Train Robbery.
- Showdown at High Noon: Billy imagines himself to be in one, but since he doesn't have a gun and his opponent is a businessman in a suit, all he does is bump the guy's shoulder as they pass in the crosswalk, much to the businessman's bewilderment.
