Elmore Leonard , the revered American novelist and short story writer, is today known more for his crime fiction and suspense thrillers laced with dollops of humor and great dialogue. A lot of them – like Get Shorty and Out of Sight – has been adapted into very popular movies. But he started out as a writer of gritty Westerns in the 1950s. His most famous work being 3:10 to Yuma, which was made into a movie by director Delmer Daves, starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. His other novels that were adapted into movies include Paul Newman starrer Hombre and Randolph Scott starrer The Tall T.
So it was natural that he would team up with the ultimate western icon, Clint Eastwood, for a film. But it was not going to be an adaptation of any of his novels, Leonard would right an original script for Clint.
It was Joe Kidd(1972), directed by Western veteran john Sturges(The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape). With such a great pedigree – of Eastwood, Leonard and Sturges – and a great supporting cast – which include actors like Robert Duvall and John Saxon- one would have expected the film to turn out to be as iconic and popular as any of the famous westerns that Eastwood or Sturges had made individually in their lifetime. But Joe Kidd is quite an obscure entry in their respective filmographies.
It’s hardly ever mentioned except by die hard fans, which is a pity really, because even though the film doesn’t break any new ground vis-à-vis the genre, characterization or performances , on it’s own it’s a great star vehicle that shows off the legendary Eastwood persona and his star charisma to the fullest. Clint was entering a golden period in his career, especially after the massive success of Dirty Harry that made him perhaps the biggest movie star of that time. He had evolved a lot, as a star and as an actor, from the Rawhide\Spaghetti western days, and it works well for this film.
Enter our hero (or rather the anti-hero) Joe Kidd(Clint Eastwood). Kidd has been many things in the past and his history reads more like the description of the roles played by Eastwood in his previous films. Kidd started out as a bounty hunter, then he became a frontier tracker, and then a deliverer of supplies to the Apache reservation. What he does now is rather ambiguous. He is some kind of an outlaw; when we first see him , he is in jail handcuffed to bed. But he is tastefully dressed as a town dude(as Elma describes him later), in a suit and tie. He is brutally hungover and has a hard time getting up when Sheriff Mitchell(Gregory Walcott) comes to take him to court.
In jail, his fellow inmates are Naco and Ramon, both members of the Chama gang. Naco repeatedly taunts Kidd, which Kidd ignores at first, but when he finally gets up to go to court , he pours the bowl of soup down Naco’s head and beats him up; All of this carried out in his inimitable cool, laconic, darkly comical style by Eastwood. Kidd has been locked up on the charges of poaching and behaving disorderly. He hunted and killed a deer on the reservation and when he was arrested for the crime by the Sheriff, he threatened to urinate all over the courthouse. The judge(John Carter) is amused and outraged by Kidd’s actions. He offers him a choice of 10 days in jail or $10 fine as punishment. Kidd, who is in a mood to irritate the Sheriff who had punched him earlier, takes the 10 days. But the Sheriff promises him that he isn’t going to get any free meals and he intends to work Kidd to his bone for 10 days.
First things first: Joe Kidd doesn’t really stack up to films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven or even High Plains Drifter. But it’s still a prime example of a well-made, by the numbers, meat and potatoes Western with a perfectly tailored role for Eastwood; a deadpan, scowling, squinting badass with a dry sense of humor. He looks great , moves great and talk just enough; more comfortable letting his silences, squint and attitude do the talking . Elmore Leonard has crafted a lean, clean and straightforward narrative, which does not pose any strong moral questions or indulge in ideological debates, even though there was a lot of scope for that in the script.
I have a feeling that both the script and the film was heavily edited down after Clint came on board. The film runs a crisp 87 minutes and is pretty much well paced for most of it’s running time. Which means that the film does not have the expansiveness, depth and scale of other John Sturges’ westerns like Hour of the Gun or The Magnificent Seven. Sturges was coming off a bad experience directing Steve McQueen in Les Mans(1971). He had quit the film midway as he couldn’t get along with McQueen .
By some accounts , the same thing happened with Clint also on this film. Their relationship was acrimonious, with Clint, now a director himself and also one of the most powerful superstars in the industry, asserting himself in the making of the film. But Sturges still manages to leave his imprints on the film with his trademark widescreen compositions; and the film is magnificently photographed by Bruce Surtees, who puts the resplendent California landscape to good use. The film boasts of a great soundtrack by Eastwood regular Lalo Schifrin. All in all, a must for all Eastwood fans.
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