Rating: 
Summary: Lik the proverb says, "'Bad Company' corrupts good morals."
Review: This is an overlooked and, unfortunately, mostly forgotten Western from the 1970s. I first saw it with my younger sisters and brother at the Mustang Drive-In in Chandler, Arizona. Also, many people may not know that members of a 70s rock band were so impressed with the movie that they chose the movie's title for their band's name. The story is about one boy (Barry Brown) and his struggle to survive after his parents send him to the West to avoid being drafted into the Civil War. His mother makes him promise to write her over the course of his journey. The boy, being a good Methodist, promises his mother that he will and leaves the security of his home to find loneliness and hunger on the road. He meets up with a band of homeless (and possibly runaway or draft-dodging) boys like himself and travels with them towards the Western US. They have many adventures, but get themselves in trouble, too. One boy is shot and killed for stealing a pie which is cooling on a windowsill. Another boy meets a similar tragic ending. Finally, the only two left are the boys played by Barry Brown and Jeff Bridges. Jeff plays a boy who is the antithesis of Barry--bad versus good--and Jeff finally corrupts Barry by his lawless, immoral ways: having sex for money with a pioneer's wife, robbing banks, etc. Barry finally resorts to robbing banks with Jeff to replace the money Jeff had stolen from his boot. Jeff laughs when he tells Barry that he spent it on whores. It's a good lesson for all who watch it enfold--Barry's corruption does not happen all at once; it evolves. See the movie. Many other Westerns seemed mediocre to me after I saw "Bad Company."
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