Nevada Smith (1966)
In Nevada Smith
Steve McQueen is a half-breed, born out of an Indian (sorry: Native American)
mother and a white father. Blue-eyed and fair-haired McQueen may seem an odd
choice to play a half-breed, but note that we’re in the Sixties when white
actors were often asked to impersonate biracial characters: Paul Newman would
play one in Hombre (1967), Elvis Presley had played one
in Flaming
Star (1960).
The film tells
the background story of a character, Max Sand, created by Harold Robbins in his
novel The Carpetbeggers (*1). Sand is a young man who vows
revenge on the three men who have murdered his parents in gruesome fashion:
we’re told (luckily not shown) that his mother - a ‘squaw’ - was skinned
alive). A travelling gunsmith (Brian Keith) teaches him how to use a gun, but
also warns him that the desire for vengeance may ruin a man’s life. Max
disregards all good advice and sets out to track the three murderers down, one
by one. The villains have gone separate ways and Max even follows one of them
into a Louisiana prison camp to get even with the piece of vermin.
Keith's warnings are a first indication that the
film wants to say something about vigilantism, but its message is rather
obscure. In The Bravados (1958, Henry King) Gregory Peck
discovers that he has tracked down and killed the wrong man. In the Italian
western Da
Uomo a Uomo (Death Rides a Horse, Giulio Petroni, 1967) the
juvenile avenger discovers that his mentor was present at the scene of the
crime (albeit not as one of the killers). In both cases the discovery sheds a
new light on the avenger and his obsessions. In Nevada Smith all
pleadings to give up his quest and lead a normal life (not only by his mentor,
but also by a priest and a girl who has developed feelings for him) seem to
have little or no effect, but then, all of a sudden, when he’s about to kill
the last murderer he concludes that the man ‘isn’t worth it’. Isn’t
worth what? Max has shot the man both the arms and legs and he is most
probably bleeding to death. It’s a rather sadistic scene and the effect is
opposite to the redemptive effect the film makers most probably had in mind.
Nevada Smith (*2) was popular among
moviegoers but critical reactions were mixed. At the age of 36, Steve
McQueen is too old to play a teenager at the beginning of the movie and the
evolution of the central character from a young inexperienced boy into a hardened
killer isn’t very convincing. Instead of being epic, the film feels
episodic, with some episodes working better than others. But it remains a
fairly exciting revenge western and McQueen’s screen presence is so strong that
we are (almost) willing to accept all these complications caused by his
casting: he was not called ‘Mr. Cool’ without reason. And the supporting cast
is very fine, notably Brian Keith as his mentor and Karl Malden as the most
vicious of the murderers.
Dir: Henry Hathaway - Cast: Steve McQueen (Max Sand/Nevada Smith), Karl Malden (Tom Fitch), Brian Keith (Jonas Cord), Suzanne Pleshette (Pilar), Arthur Kennedy (Bill Bowdre), Martin Landau (Jesse Coe), Raf Vallone (Father Zaccardi), Janet Margolin (Neesa), Pat Hingle (Big Foot), Paul Fix (Sheriff Bonnell) - Cinematography: Lucien Ballard - Music: Alfred Newman
Notes:
*1) The film describes Max Sands’ first encounter with another character from the novel, Jonas Cord, but the story and script were originally written for the movie. In the 1964 screen adaptation of Robbins’ novel the characters of Max Sands and Jonas Cord were played by Alan Ladd and George Peppard respectively.
*2 Max 'adopts' the name Nevada Smith relatively late into the movie.
Hathaway, Malden, Keith, and McQueen = 4 guys who made a pile of good (and sometimes Great) Westerns. How can you lose? Falls just short of a Classic, but definitely worth watching twice. Nice write up.
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