By Fred Blosser
Released
on June 29, 1966, “Nevada Smith” was well-received by audiences who still
flocked to A-list Westerns in those days, earning $14 million in ticket
sales—about $132 million in today’s value. Produced by Joseph E. Levine and directed by Henry Hathaway, it starred
Steve McQueen in the title role, as a young half-Indian man, birth name Max
Sand, who determines to track down the three outlaws who murdered his
parents. The movie was a spinoff from a
previous Levine release, “The Carpetbaggers,” a sensational hit in 1964 based
on a Harold Robbins novel. There, in his
final role, Alan Ladd played the older Nevada Smith, a reformed gunfighter
turned B-movie cowboy actor in the 1930s. Thus the 1966 release was a prequel, as we’d now call it, based on a
lengthy section from Robbins’ novel. The
reviews for the 1966 production were mostly positive, except for two opinions
that observers continue to raise in on-line and print discussions about the
film. At 35, they argue, McQueen was too
old and seasoned to play a kid supposedly in his late teens. And with blond hair and blue eyes, nobody
would mistake him for anyone with Native American genetics. Does either point of view stand up to
examination? We McQueen fans would say,
not really. Movies are all about
illusion anyway, in case anyone forgets all those John Hughes films of the ‘80s
starring actors in their twenties as high school kids. At this late date with McQueen’s iconic
status firmly established, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing the
part. (Although someone else tried, not
counting Alan Ladd as the older, more sedate Nevada in “The
Carpetbaggers.” Cliff Potts essayed the
role in a 1975 TV production also titled “Nevada Smith,” designed as a direct
sequel to Hathaway’s picture. Filmed as
a hopeful pilot for a TV series, it’s pretty much forgotten now. Cliff Potts was a good actor, usually cast as
charming but devious characters, but he was no Steve McQueen.)
In
Hathaway’s movie, three drifters, Fitch, Bowdre, and Coe, ride up to young Max
Sand and claim to be friends of his father’s. The actors in the roles were Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy, and Martin Landau. Try to find a trio of that caliber in any
2023 release. Helpfully, Max tells the
strangers to find the homestead, immediately getting a bad feeling when they
speed off, yelling and firing their pistols. The three drifters know the elder Sand all right, but they’ve really
come to demand the gold they believe he’s found in a nearby mine. When he says the mine is worthless, and all
it ever yielded was a $38 nugget, the intruders don’t believe him and work
themselves into a rage. Coe draws a
knife, cold-bloodedly cuts Sand’s Kiowa wife, and threatens to skin her alive
if the miner doesn’t tell them where he’s supposedly hidden his riches. By the time Max reaches the cabin, he finds
his parents’ mangled corpses, and the killers are long gone.
Max
sets out to avenge the murders, but inexperienced and naive, he isn’t cut out
for the job—at first. “If you want to
find those men, you’ll have to look in every saloon, hog farm, and whorehouse
you come to,” warns a chance acquaintance, Jonas Cord (Brian Keith), a friendly
traveling gunsmith. “You’ll have to
become what they are, and wallow in the same garbage they do.” Realizing he can’t persuade Max to call it
quits, Jonas teaches him the essential skills he’ll need to survive: draw fast
and shoot straight, learn to play poker, do everything you can not to give
yourself away, and don’t trust anybody, “not even your friends.” Working his way up through Coe and Bowdre,
he finally locates Fitch. Calling
himself “Nevada Smith,” he joins the outlaw’s new gang in a plan to rob a gold
shipment, bringing the story, neatly, full circle. Fitch knows Max Sand is after him, but he
doesn’t remember what Max looks like; regardless, he grows suspicious and
paranoid about Nevada Smith as the day of the robbery approaches.
Filmed
at locations in California and Louisiana (where Max robs a bank to get himself
sentenced to a prison farm, next to Bowdre), “Nevada Smith” impressed audiences
in 1966 with McQueen’s athletic performance against scenic outdoor backdrops, beautifully
composed by Hathaway and his cinematographer, Lucian Ballard. This may not seem to be a remarkable
achievement until you revisit the old TV Westerns of the ‘60s, which still run
every day on streaming platforms like GritTV and Cinevault Westerns, and
remember their tired stock-in-trade of aging stars, repetitive storylines,
meager action, and generic backlot sets standing in for Dodge City, the
Ponderosa, and the Big Valley. A new
Blu-ray edition of “Nevada Smith” from Kino Lorber, in a 4K scan of the
original camera negative, reproduces the vistas in stunning detail and
richness, a long overdue boost for viewers who may have seen the movie only in
edited, pan-and-scan TV prints. C.
Courtney Joyner, Mark Jordan Legan, and Henry Parke offer a fine ensemble audio
commentary, pointing out—among other elements—the legion of fine character
actors in the supporting cast. Normally,
I pride myself on that sort of Hollywood trivia, but Joyner, Legan, and Parke
put me in my place. They pointed out
some faces I would have missed otherwise.
Click here to order from Amazon
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)