Review of The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) by Ian B — 18 Jan 2017

Clint Eastwood optioned a book by Forrest Carter for his 5th film as director. He had finished at Universal, and signed up a big deal at Warner Bros. where he would stay for nearly all his career. This one was a dark, violent western which was gave Clint one of his best performances, with a colourful cast and a good, gripping story.

It has Missouri farmer Josey Wales (Clint) seeking revenge after his wife and son are murdered by a group of Union Warriors. He is taken in by Confederate guerrillas, led by Captain Fletcher (John Vernon), but refuses to surrender and guns down a band of Redlegs with a Gatling gun.

Wales goes on the run, with a $5,000 bounty on his head. Wales is a man who would rather travel alone, but on his travels heading for freedom in Mexico, he ends up with wise old Cherokee Lone Watie (Chief Dan George, who nearly steals the film), Navajo woman Little Moonlight (Geraldine Keams), an old woman from Kansas called Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman), and her granddaughter Laura Lee (Sondra Locke), and they encounter Comancheros too.

It's another revisionist western, but Clint was in his element with this, Josey Wales is a prime example of an anti-hero, a sad casualty of the American Civil War, but this proved to be a successful western in a time when westerns were dying out.