Totally ignored by American critics when it was first released, The Left Handed Gun was recognized as a major first film by the French, who noted the film's sensitive portrait of troubled youth and its disturbing vision of violent America. Originally conceived as a vehicle for James Dean, Penn's debut explores the first in a line of social outcasts that recur throughout Penn's cinema, reinventing the legendary figure of Billy the Kid as a sympathetic misfit unable to integrate into a society deliberately cruel to those who are different. Paul Newman subtly captures Billy's fragile, troubled life in a nuanced performance that frequently replaces words with resonant and unexpected gestures.