Nevada Smith

Nevada Smith (1966)Directed by Henry Hathaway.A "young" Steven McQueen, in one of his better vehicles. The story of revenge is lengthy but it rewards your patience. McQueen plays a half-breed, Max Sand, whose parents are murdered by a gang of outlaws, led by Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy and Martin Landau. He goes after them, but he is a plain country bumpkin who doesn't even know how to fire a gun--let alone track down and catch the three murderers. But he stumbles upon a gun trader (Brian Keith) who schools him in the art of shooting and looking cool when pursuing seasoned killers. He learns fast and uses all kinds of ruses before he gets too the pursuit of the villains. After a lengthy search he finds Landau in a saloon, and though the latter is an expert with the knife, he manages to kill him after a lengthy brawl. He imprisons himself doing hard labor in the Louisiana swamps after he has tracked down the Kennedy character, plans an escape, with the help of a local girl played by the late Susanne Pleshette, during which he kills him after the latter recognizes him. The last task, finding and killing Malden, requires unusual guile, but Sand is up to the task; he is been recruited by Malden himself for a bullion heist, isolates him, and shoots him in the hands and knees, immobilizing him but leaving him alive in the river, shouting at him--"Kill me! You are yellow!" Sand throws the gun into the river, and leaves him there to die alone. That is his revenge.This is one of the strongest vehicles for McQueen, with a cluster of outstanding character actors building up an exciting, though slow-paced, climax. Max is in a moral quandary: He takes upon himself to be the pursuer--who learns on the job--the captor, the judge, and the executioner. It's a story of frontier justice--usually delivered by individuals, and not the law--which stays a secondary factor in the story. Max Sand has scuffles with the law, but his revenge is an individual act, not one that fulfils any moral law--or the justice system. When confronted by a priest living in the desert--Ralph Valone in a brilliant vignette--he brushes off his counsel of "forgiveness," and makes a joke when the priest points to a statuette of the crucifixion who "came to save mankind." "He must have missed some," cracks Sand in bitterness.As always, McQueen is super-cool, and a bit enigmatic. Nothing fazes him, nothing can stop him, but what does not know exactly what drives him. He is a world apart from the sadistic, casual killers that populate the Wild West--for the kill for greed and profit, with no regard whatsoever for human life, property, or one's rights. The villains are the blackest characters one sees in the typical western; they utterly lack moral consciousness. Sand refrains from killing anyone else except those that killed his parents. He possesses a moral code--one suited to McQueen persona to a tee. Undeterred, he proceeds until he succeeds. And when he finally has Malden where he wants him, wounded, and incapable of fighting back, he contemptuously refrains from finishing him off: "You are not worth killing," he says, and tosses his gun into the river, only a few feet away, perhaps thinking that Malden could somehow reach the gun and kill himself. Tossing the gun is an ironic gesture, for it may imply that Valone's sermonizing may not have been in vain. "An eye for an eye," is what collects from the Bible the priest gave him to read--but once this is accomplished, he wants no more blood. He will probably return to the farm and live the rest of his live a quiet and harmless man--rather than as one of the criminals around him. A very entertaining movie, aside from carrying on a not so well masked moral tag to it. Vintage McQueen, for the love of him--in this day and age of 2011.

Like the headline says, this is a gorgeous blu-ray! A brand-new HD master was used, from a 4K scan of the 35mm original negative. "4K scan" of the negative does not mean this is a UHD disk, requiring a UHD player. It is a regular blu-ray, and it played fine in my regular old blu-ray player.If you're a fan of this movie, unless you've acquired some restoration I missed, I doubt you've seen this movie look so good. It's astonishing, like a different movie from the one I've watch on my old DVD for many years. The beautiful scenery in the Owens Valley and Inyo National Forest can really be enjoyed now. Most important, Steve McQueen looks great—he may be too old for the part of a young man bent on revenge for the brutal murders of his parents, but so what? He looks glorious in this release, and that's fine with me.Very glad I pre-ordered this, very happy with the restoration, love the movie even more now, and really really hope that "Tom Horn" is next on the KL-Studio McQueen restoration list. (Their recent restoration release of McQueen's film "Hunter" also looks great and brings that movie to new life, making it a better film.)

I saw Nevada Smith when it was first released in '66. McQueen was nearing the height of his popularity, and this film took him to the top.Although some will find fault in the casting of non-Natives in Native American roles (Suzanne Pleshette as "Pilar" doesn't fool anyone, but she is still excellent in the role -- and she looks great), the casting is overall outstanding, with several great character actors in supporting roles: Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, and Arthur Kennedy head the supporting cast, with first-rate work from Raf Vallone, Pat Hingle (as always, he is great), as others of the time. Howard da Silva as the Warden is, of course, wonderful.McQueen is supposed to be a teenage boy, half white, half Kiowa; he can't pull it off as being that young, but he still does good work . . . and we all overlooked the age problem (he was in his mid-30s at the time).It's a film of its time, so some of the fighting/shooting might not measure up to today's standards, but it's a totally watchable and enjoyable movie. And McQueen was always a strong physical presence on film.I took off one star because the stunt work isn't great. Other than that (and the casting of Janet Margolin as the Native American girl "Neesa" -- not good), sit back, relax, and enjoy the search for revenge and the surprising "justice" at the end.

Nothing better than watching these well-acted films & times, incredible actors / actresses, Steve McQueen is simply an iconic figure, real Americana!