Review of Joe Kidd (1972) by Bruno V — 30 Apr 2014

Directed by John Sturges, (The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963) and Ice Station Zebra (1968)) and written by Elmore Leonard. This is quiet revisionist western, in the mould of the films Clint Eastwood had made in Spain with Sergio Leone.

It doesn't add anything new to the genre, but this one has a few familiar faces in the cast, and a few crew members who would work with Eastwood later. Joe Kidd (Eastwood) is a former bounty hunter in prison for trespassing on Indian territory and hunting.

In the town of Sinola in New Mexico, Mexican revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon) has come to town, and is organising a peasants revolt against the local landowners. To stand up against Chama, a posse is financed and formed by landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall), who persuades Kidd to join.

Kidd is reluctant, but joins after his own land is attacked, to take down Chama won't be an easy job, but the union between Kidd and Harlan's posse doesn't last long, and Kidd decides to go solo and find Chama and his men in his own way.

There's nothing really memorable about this western, although it's key sequence involves Eastwood driving a train off the tracks and through a saloon. It was a difficult production, with Eastwood hospitalised with bronchitis during production and Sturges and Leonard arguing over the script.

But it's good, just not great.