“Broncho Billy and the Baby” was a short Christmas allegory by Peter B. Kayne which appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1910 and which spawned seven motion pictures. The story is of three bandits who rob the bank at New Jerusalem and head out into the desert to escape. There they encounter a dying woman who extracts a promise from them that they will save her new-born baby. The outlaws battle thirst and the elements and finally one of them makes it back to New Jerusalem with the infant just in time for the Christmas Eve service.
The first cinematic version appeared in 1911, a one-reeler called The Outlaw and the Child; it was followed by three more silent films in 1913, 1916 and 1919. The first sound version (and Universal Studio’s first outdoor talkie) was Hell’s Heroes in 1930, filmed by William Wyler in the Mojave Desert. Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, and Fred Kohler Sr play three genuinely hard men and the movie is uncompromising and harsh. Two more sentimental renditions both called Three Godfathers appeared in 1936 and, more memorably, in 1948. The latter was a John Ford western starring John Wayne, Harry Carey Jr. and Pedro Armendariz; it was the only one to dare a happy ending. In 1974 the made-for-television The Godchild moved the plot to three Civil War escapees played by Jack Palance, Jack Warden and Keith Carradine.