Nevada Smith
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Movie Reviews of Nevada Smith
Movie Review: Don't forget the way back
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're ever curious why people made such a fuss about Steve McQueen check out NEVADA SMITH, Henry Hathaway's sprawling tale of vengeance and obsession.McQueen plays young half-Indian/half-white Max Sand, whose parents are murdered by a trio of bandits (Martin Landau, Arthur Kennedy, Karl Malden.) McQueen was 36 years old in 1966, the year NEVADA SMITH was made, and was probably a decade past the time when he could effortlessly portray a naïve young hero. There's a brief, disturbingly violent scene at the beginning of the movie where the three villains are torturing Smith's parents, and the woman portraying McQueen's Kiowa mother doesn't look much older than 35. Still, McQueen brings a wide-eyed innocence to his performance that tremendously helps us suspend disbelief. Besides, I believe I counted exactly zero close-ups in this action western. If you want to check out the crow's feet around McQueen's eyes you'll have to look hard and fast to see them.
McQueen gets a chance to play against some Hollywood professionals at the top of their games. Brian Keith is growlingly good as traveling gunsmith Jonas Cord, who plays Polonius to McQueen's Laertes, and plies the young stranger with instruction and advice. Max Sand won't be argued out of his mission to avenge the death of his parents, and the pragmatic Cord reluctantly agrees to be his mentor. It's through Cord and, later, a priest Sand comes across, that the movie is allowed to question its central theme - vengeance. Cord argues the practical ("You'll turn into one of the rats you're hunting,") the priest the spiritual. It's a tribute to the brilliance of McQueen's performance that by the time we reach the last scene we can see how both arguments have contributed to his maturation. Karl Malden plays the evil, racist Tom Fitch with sadist gusto. Malden overacts a bit in one of those rare roles that benefits when an actor takes it over the top. Watching the suspicious Fitch interrogate the no-longer-naïve Max Sand is one of the highlights of the movie.
The underrated Hathaway shot most of NEVADA SMITH on location, and the realistic look is used to great advantage. He doesn't go for the landmark shots a la John Ford in Monument Valley, choosing instead to play scenes in anonymous swamps and deserts. The realism shoots through all the way to stunts and props and costumes. Instead of elaborately choreographed fist fights with exaggerated sound effects every time a blow is struck, the characters in NEVADA SMITH scratch and claw, bite and kick when they fight. The clothes they wear are torn and dirty and they stay dirty.
NEVADA SMITH has enough going for it to appeal to those who aren't typically fans of westerns. If you are a fan this is a must-see.
Movie Review: Why McQueen Was A Star
Summary: 5 Stars
Nevada Smith was made at the heights of McQueen's short, but terrific career. This film, along with Love With The Proper Stranger, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Cincinnati Kid and Bullitt, proves just why McQueen was a star.
Although the film is your average revenge-story, McQueen's performance along with Karl Malden, Martin Landau, Brian Keith and Susanne Pleshette, make it worth watching. McQueen stars as a young man (the script mentions that he's a boy and half-Indian, but so what?)who witnesess his parents' murder at the hands of Karl Malden's blood-thirsty gang. From there he goes on a year's long quest to hunt down each and every one of the killers, until his parents' death is avenged. He even goes so far as to land himself in a Louisianan chain gang to get one of them. What makes this movie stand out from other films in this genre, is McQueen's maturation during this process. He goes from young boy, to seasoned, cool killer by the time he reaches Karl Malden. McQueen, known for extensively underplaying a scene, gives away all kinds of subtlelties that most people missed (indeed this is why some in Hollywood didn't consider him a good actor), but that upon closer inspection one would see that he's "in character" every step of the way. The scene when he's in the swamp with one of his parents' killers and Susann Pleshette is chilling, because you see all of his rage at finally finding this man and exacting his revenge. What is more poignant is when he, at long last, has Karl Malden, and instead of killing him, leaves him there to die. You see in McQueen's eyes all of the pain, and sorrow, at his parents' loss, but you also see the pity that he has for this weak, pathetic man who is nothing without a gun on his belt. McQueen simply looks at the man, shrugs and walks away. In the hands of another actor this scene would've been overplayed to the point of melodrama, but McQueen said everything that needed to be said in a few simple gestures. That's what makes a star.
Movie Review: Great Movie! Great Message!
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is a wonderful story that takes the viewer on an emotional and spiritual journey as its protagonist (Nevada Smith) goes on a calculated hunt to find and exact revenge on his parents' three brutal murderers. He's warned early on by a friend (Brian Keith) that he'll eventually become like the people he's after. A heartbreaking scene, in the backwaters of Louisiana, underscores that the prediction is coming true. There, as he hears a stunning rebuke from an indignant Suzanne Pleshette (who gives a great performance here), the realization begins to dawn upon our hero that he is not as righteous as he (or we) suppose.
After he is two-thirds through with his "mission," Nevada Smith (i.e. Max Sands) is given a Bible to read by a priest whose family has been massacred by Indians as a child. The knowing priest warns Max that those who seek revenge ultimately become so consumed with anger and hate that they destroy themselves most of all. Steve McQueen, with his sometimes quizzical, sometimes resistant looks, is the perfect actor to play the part of the aggrieved young man who slowly processes what he is doing and what it is doing to him. Nevada Smith echoes the story of Ben Hur in that the example of Christ praying on the cross ("Father forgive them, they know not what they do") is the final ingredient needed to soften the vengeful spirit of one whose family has been destroyed by the evil hand of man. By the film's climax an "awakened" Max (like Ben Hur) finally "ceases from anger and forsakes wrath." (Psalm 37:8) The ending scene, with it's swelling score (perhaps the best in movie history!) majestically underlines the true strength and heroism Nevada Smith has found in leaving vengeance to God and makes this film end on a high note that few movies have ever reached.
Movie Review: Forsaking Revenge
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent western and a marvelous exposé of the bigotry of an era when many regarded Indians with the same contempt that unborn babies are seen today. To kill one, even as brutally and violently as Max Sand/Steve McQueen's mother's dies, is to do nothing wrong. As the son of an Indian mother and a white father, McQueen bridges the gap between the less-than-human Indian and the fully human white, when he seeks revenge for his mother and father's slaying.
Because Max has been reared in the wilderness, at the beginning of this film he's a blank slate, understanding nothing about either violence or the evil that violence can do to a man's soul, even when undertaken to revenge a wrong. Through most of the film, he uses and discards good people in the pursuit of his revenge. Only with a Cajun woman, who dies because of him, does he begin to change and become the man he is in the climatic last scene.
Well worth watching, particularly while asking the question, "What would I have done if I'd been in his shoes?"
--Michael W. Perry, Across Asia on a Bicycle: The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking
Movie Review: unrelentless until the end
Summary: 5 Stars
Unrelentless until the end never say die gut renching blood fued to get his men movie. A man that would do anything to get revenge on those that had killed his mother and father. And Steve McQueen pulls it off magnificently in his role.
Brian Keith does an excellent job as the gun salesman. It was this movie that sold me on how well of an actor that he actually was. Even though some of the marksmanship may have been staged and fired by someone else off of the camera angle he looked as though he had made the shot.
And no movie hero is good enough unless he has a super villan to fight against. And Karl Malden is just such a badman. Not only did he play the badman but a wise, scared, and cautious one at that.
So if I haven't by now convinced you that this is well worth seeing then I'm sorry. But if you don't see for yourself then you've missed one of the worlds best westerns ever made. That is why I watched it three times before ever putting it in the rack in between Winchester 73 and the Searchers.