Nevada Smith
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Movie Reviews of Nevada Smith
Movie Review: A Western Odyssey of Epic Scope.
Summary: 5 Stars
A must have in a western / Steve McQueen collection - a forgotten classic.Movie Review: A respectable entry in the annals of the best Westerns!
Summary: 4 Stars
Henry Hathaway was a versatile director whose Westerns have been as variable in quality as his other films...
Hathaway's best Westerns have all come in the fifties, beginning with the very credible 'Rawhide,' with Tyrone Power, and continuing with 'Garden of Evil,' the highly enjoyable burlesque 'North to Alaska,' most of 'How the West Was Won,' 'The Sons of Katie Elder,' 'Five Card Stud,' and 'True Grit.'
Hathaway's strong points are atmosphere, character and authentic locations... The little known 'From Hell to Texas' is quoted by those who have seen it as Hathaway's best Western on these three counts, a film directed with profound feeling for the deliberate pace and loneliness of the real West...
'Nevada Smith' is actually a strong and revealing study of the regeneration of one man... The film makes an excellent double bill with Marlon Brando's sole effort as director, 'One-Eyed Jacks.'
'Nevada Smith' is an exciting premise, taught and tight... It is not a motion picture to dismiss or forget... It is one of the first films to apply the contemporary standards of sex and violence to an Old West setting... The film is based on a story by John Michael Hayes, two-time Academy Award nominated screenwriter for 'Rear Window,' and 'Peyton Place.'
The film lingers in the mind because of its visual beauty and the intensity of some of its scenes, particularly between McQueen and Malden, two knowing actors playing together with the skill of champion chess players...
Hathaway sets up his atmosphere of dramatic tension right at the start... With a horse, a rifle, and 8 dollars, McQueen is a half-white teen-aged whose only desire is to hunt down his parents vicious killers... All helpless, he vows to dispatch the three 'bravados' one by one... He even gets himself thrown into prison just to gun one of them down...
With the help of a gun merchant (Brian Keith), McQueen learns how to shoot a gun and sets out the chase where the money is... He rides off alone, blinded by a compulsion that obscures his other motive for living: 'I don't see nothing, except my father laying on a covered-floor all burnt and cut with the top of his head blown to pieces, and my mother split up in the middle and every square inch of her skin ripped off.'
Steve McQueen recreates the type of role he had played in 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' He is effective in his hesitant, self-conscious way, eager to be a firm gunfighter and almost as inept... He has little more sense of character than Ladd in Edward Dmytryk's 'The Carpetbaggers' but has a tension which made the film interesting to watch...
Brian Keith is excellent as the father figure who adopts McQueen... He is sincere in warning the young avenger that in order to catch and kill these men, he will have to comb out every saloon, gambling hall, hog farm and whorehouse, and become just as despicable as they are... Keith comes out a star with his quiet, sure, graceful underplaying... As he instructs McQueen, it was clear that he knows not only his guns but human nature..
Suzanne Pleshette, standing knee deep in water, is the pretty girl, able to escape from the terrors of her environment into the poetry of her reveries... Both a sinner and a saint, Pilar adds humanity to Max world...
With a knife in his hand, and a scar on his neck, Martin Landau is the psychotic womanizer, a morose, evil character, caught in Abelene dealing cards in a saloon...
Arthur Kennedy - friendly, smiling, charming and smooth-talking on the surface, weak and corrupt underneath - is the frightened villain swamped by a storm of revenge...
Karl Malden is the cynical badman who depreciates his gold before his executioner...
Raf Vallone is the good priest who wants his young avenging hunter to take a deep look into his heart...
Pat Hingle is the prisoner in custody with gun and whip, who takes great pleasure and delight in breaking his companions by beating them up...
Howard da Silva is the ruthless warden who assures his prisoners that the swamp is their wall... Miles and miles of it, filled of dirty water, quicksand, razorbacks, poison snakes, mosquitoes and malaria...
Janet Margolin is the dance hall girl uncertain of the identity of one of the dangerous murderers...
Joanna Cook Moore is the grateful saloon girl who offers herself to Max...
Rick Roman is Cipriano, the bandit who warns seriously his companion not to harm Father Zaccardi...
Ted de Corsia is the bartender who wants the two contenders to calm down in order to find out the truth..
The expertise before the cameras and behind it, plus McQueen's dynamic presence, makes 'Nevada Smith' a respectable entry in the annals of the best Westerns...
Movie Review: Choose to live over vengeance.
Summary: 4 Stars
A favorite Steve McQueen vehicle, the sprawling western that stretches a bit too far. To me, this was just a hip take on the western melodramas of the 50's. In the early scenes, McQueen could have helped cedibility a great bit by letting another actor play himself as an adolescent. I believe this was an early Harold Robbins novel and toned down into the lengthy story. As McQueen's character moves across the land in hunt of those responsible for killing his family, there are wonderful life-changing moments. Brian Keith's gun lore and rapport with McQueen is worth the whole viewing. Another mini-scene within this adventure is with the under-utilized, Suzanne Pleshette, in the swamplands of Louisiana. Love nearly conquered, slowing the story until McQueen catches up with Karl Malden and his thugs. Malden is strong in his scenes, but there is too much horseplay at the end that makes the revenge a bit silly and wrong-headed, since any red-blooded man would have run off with Pleshette anyway. Right when you want McQueen to kill the thugs, there's some nonsense with a Mission priest that slows the finish even more. Cut-up and shown on TV, it was a tighter, more fluid story. Like Malden's "Left-handed Gun," the film is uneven and crawls in spots. We forgive this movie when the sum of the mini-scenes do not add up to a successful whole, for the fact that an editor did not do what was best. I don't even remember what revenge McQueen's character had at the end. 30 years later I watch the movie to see Pleshette, Keith and McQueen do what casts of 10 or so on TV sitcoms can never approach.Kudos for casting, thumbs down for pacing.Movie Review: A very good western and great entertainment
Summary: 4 Stars
I love this movie for it's "revenge" story line, the good action, terrific acting, and beautiful scenery. I've actually been to a few of the exact locations where the movie was filmed, along the Eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada range in CA., which gives me some nostalgic memories whenever I watch the movie.
I especially like the part where Brian Keith befriends Max Sand (McQueen) and shows him how to shoot. The dialog between the two is classic: McQueen>> "I'm half white". Keith>> "And you're all helpless". What is kind of strange is that McQueen is probably at least 35 years old in this movie. Yet, he's referred to as "just a kid". Karl Malden plays a terrific heavy. And he gets what he deserves. I imagine he had a tough time crawling out of Hot Creek after Max shot him in the knee caps. OUCH!
The only part of this movie I didn't care for was when Max Sand was sent to the bayou prison. This whole section of the movie was just a little too long and a little too slow for me. But, in spite of my thoughts on the bayou section, this is a terrific movie. The scenery is beautiful, the characters are interesting, the action is lively, and the story will keep your interest. Nevada Smith takes you on an adventure full of action and suspense. I've watched it probably 6 or 8 times over the years, and it's still fun to watch.
Movie Review: Solid revenge Western
Summary: 4 Stars
Despite being curiously banned from British TV screens for many years in the wake of the entirely unconnected Hungerford massacre, Nevada Smith is a solid and petty lavishly mounted revenge western culled from the backstory of Alan Ladd's ageing cowboy star in The Carpetbaggers. With Steve McQueen heading an impressive cast (Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy, Martin Landau, Brian Keith, Suzanne Pleshette, Janet Margolin, etc) you could almost see it as a last-gasp attempt to be the classic American Western as its narrative sends its hero from Texas to California via a chain gang in the Louisiana bayous. It could have been tighter and you have to question how merciful his final act is after putting that many holes in someone, but its an entertaining ride and the eternally under-appreciated Henry Hathaway makes it look particularly great in Scope. No extras, but at least the 2.35:1 widescreen transfer is good.