It is loosely based on the life of American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas Roy Bean.

[3] An outlaw, Roy Bean, rides into a West Texas border town called Vinegaroon by himself.

Maria Elena is given a place to live and fine clothes ordered from a Sears Roebuck catalog.

When a band of thieves comes to town (Big Bart Jackson and gang members Nick the Grub, Fermel Parlee, Tector Crites, and Whorehouse Lucky Jim), rather than oppose them, Bean swears them in as lawmen.

Dispensing his own kind of frontier justice, Bean lets the marshals hang a murderer named Sam Dodd, and share his money.

When a drunk shoots up a saloon, Bean does not mind, but when Lillie's portrait is struck by a bullet, the fellow is shot dead on the spot.

Later a madman, Bad Bob, comes to town and proceeds to raise hell, kill his own horse and challenge Bean to a showdown.

When a lawyer named Frank Gass shows up claiming the saloon is rightfully his, Bean puts him in a cage with the bear.

In his absence, Gass and the prostitutes conspire to seize control of the town from the judge's hard rule.

Bean, on horseback, chases Gass into a burning building, declaring "For Texas, and Miss Lilly!".

She is told the story of Judge Roy Bean and his feelings toward her by Tector, the caretaker of the saloon, now turned into a museum.

Additional notable appearances include Mark Headley as Billy the Kid, Jack Colvin as a Pimp, Dick Farnsworth, Roy Jenson, and Fred Krone as Outlaws, Howard Morton as a Photographist, and Don Starr as the Opera House Manager.

The film was based on an original script by John Milius, who hoped to direct with Warren Oates in the lead.

He sits out there in the desert and he's got this great vision of law and order and civilization and he kills people and does anything in the name of progress.

[10] Paul Newman thought that Bruno stole every scene in which they appeared together, an opinion shared by some reviewers.

"[14] The film was budgeted at $3 million, but costs increased due to insertion of a final sequence not in the original script and extensive post-production editing.

[16] Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it "doesn't have much flow and keeps stopping and starting.

"[17] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "so entertaining and so vigorously performed, especially by Newman in the title role, that its pretensions become part of its robust, knock-about style.

"[18] Variety wrote "The two-hour running time is not fleshed out with anything more than scenic vignettes, sometime attempting to recreate the success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with an Alan and Marilyn Bergman-lyricked tune and Maurice Jarre's music, sometimes attempting honest spoofing of western, and sometimes trying to play the story historically straight.

"[19] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four and wrote "Not the 'bawdy' gags, nor the 'Marmalade, Molasses and Honey' musical interlude sung by Andy Williams, can hide the essential flaw in Roy Bean: He is a blind, egotistical jerk who gets off by hanging people.

"[22] Clyde Jeavons of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote "Now and again, thanks to the choice of an episodic style and the use of an engaging crop of guest stars in cameo roles, there are glimpses of what might have been; moments when the film looks as if it might take off like Butch Cassidy or say something meaningful like Little Big Man...But these are small oases in a large desert, and no matter how dismissive John Huston may choose to be about his film, it has the air of an elaborate mistake—overblown, tedious and over-emphatic.