Billy Boyle

[JasonH]

In a movie loaded with great performances, the standout for me is Norman Foster as Billy Boyle, the ultimate toady of Jake Hannaford. Quintessentially Wellesian, Billy is a target of ridicule and the most overtly comic relief of the Hannaford Mafia, yet by the end he may be the character with the most pathos. That last shot of him alone with his thoughts at the drive-in, still carrying the torch, is affectingly tragic.

You can count on Welles’s sympathy to go out to the loyal stooge over the righteous turncoat every time. When the Baron gives his little tribute to Billy, he seems to be acting as a mouthpiece for the movie’s point of view:

What you need, now and always, are the soldiers. The good soldiers. Men like Billy. They followed Hannibal and Napoleon. They really crossed the Alps. They are the heroes in any story.

Billy is the most steadfast of Jake’s disciples, and all he gets for his loyalty and cheerleading is abuse and scapegoating. It finally causes him to relapse into alcoholism (his success up to that point at quitting booze, by swapping one addiction for another with candy, links him to Hank Quinlan), yet he carries on, reliably the last vocal defender standing.