Nevada Smith

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...

This sidebar story from Harold Robbins THE CARPETBAGGERS was given class treatment by Paramount as a vehicle for McQueen, who lends some authenticity to a rather routine character motivated by a quest to avenge the brutal slaying of his parents at the beginning of the picture. Henry Hathaway lends visual elegance to what's basically a drawn-out, seedy revenge tale. Alfred Newman provides the rousing music. Moderately engaging.

Though there isn't much here that you haven't seen before in a western revenge drama, it's pretty well done. You can understand why the protagonist turns away at any chance of a normal life and instead concentrates on nothing but revenge. And it is undeniably satisfying to see him enact his revenge any chance he gets.

It's good for what it is, though there are some problems, that if tweaked, could have made the movie even better. For one thing, casting McQueen as a half-Indian? And casting this mid-30s actor as a character that's supposed to be young enough to be called "Kid"!?!? Plus, the escape from the swamp doesn't seem finished; in fact, with the short sequence where one of McQueen's pursuers commenting on the bullets he has left makes me believe that several minutes were edited out before the movie was released.

What I think is the biggest problem with Nevada Smith is casting a 40 year old blond with blue eyes to play a 16 year old half Native American. It is distracting throughout the whole story. Sometimes it is even ludicrous because a couple of times people seem to recognize on sight that he is Native American. Couldn't they have at least dyed his hair black and give him some contact lenses for Pete's sake? And what was supposed to be a sweet "coming of age" scene with the young Native American girl just looked WRONG. Steve McQueen was a good actor and all, but throughout the whole movie I was using my imagination replacing him with a young Bronson or someone a little more appropriate to the character he was playing.

After witnessing the brutal massacre of his family , a young man (Steve McQueen) set out a personal vengeance against a hideous band (the trio formed by Martin Landau , Karl Malden , Arthur Kennedy) . He swears revenge and will do pay one by one the murderers . He carries the vengeance in his heart after seeing his family butchered . Previous rules of the code of west are dated , he is nowadays guided by vendetta . The protagonist combines raw ferocity , toughness and untamed youth . He learns about the life with the experience only a master gun-fighter (Brian Keith) can offer . He is going after those who killed them . He travels the southwestern and goes to Abilene as cowboy . In this cattle town the rowdy , free-spending cowboys attracted saloon keepers , gambling houses , brothels with prostitutes (Janet Margolin) and all types of frontier men , the city became notorious for its lawlessness and vice , there he found his main enemy (Martin Landau) . Later on , he goes to Northern and crosses paths to track down and hunt foes . He is become an outlaw with a price on his head and carries out bank robbery , murders and being severely wounded . But he is trapped . He is imprisoned in a prisoner camp that is a hell on the earth , the inmates are tortured , harassed and humiliated by the wardens (Pat Hingle , Howard Da Silva) in a gaol where rules the strongest law . He along with a convict (Arthur Kennedy) and helped by a gorgeous young woman( Suzanne Pleshette) are involving the preparatives for the scape . He also meets a good priest (Raf Vallone), explaining him a moralising speech.

This is a violent , lengthy Western based on the character created by Harold Robbins in ¨The Carpetbaggers ¨(adapted to cinema by Edward Dimitrick with George Peppard) . In the movie there is action , tension , adventures , violence and results to be quite entertaining . The great Steve McQueen gives a very good acting in his peculiar style . Support cast is frankly awesome , such as : Brian Keith , Raf Vallone , Pat Hingle , Howard Da Silva , Janet Margolin , Martin Landau , Paul Fix , John Doucette , Gene Evans , among others . The picture is well photographed , including magnificently detailed outdoors and stunning locations in glittering colour . As it packs an evocative and colorful cinematography in Technicolor by Lucien Ballard . Excellent music by the veteran and classic Alfred Newman . The motion picture was finely directed by Henry Hathaway (True grit, Five sons of Katie Elder) .