A box office smash for it's time Nevada Smith is a long, episodic film directed by Henry Hathaway starring the charismatic Steve McQueen. Interestingly McQueen's character actually only uses the Nevada Smith moniker once (as a temporary alias in the movie), the rest of the time using his 'real' name of Max Sand. Sand is a half breed whose parents are killed by outlaws - the outstanding trio of Martin Landau, Karl Malden and Arthur Kennedy a group of class heavies that's worth the price of admission alone - and then who resolutely sets out to track the murderers down one by one, after taking on board some life instruction from gun trader Brian Keith. The moments with Keith reminded me of the great Spaghetti Day of Anger made a year later - another film in which an experienced older gunfighter teaches an innocent the way to get through travails: with gun skills and a bit of frontier philosophy. It's a fairly traditional plot, albeit given resonance by a quality cast and production value.
Nevada Smith benefits greatly from Hathaway's leisurely outdoor directorial style, familiar from such personal favourites as The Sons of Katie Elder and North to Alaska as well as some excellent mise en scene cinematography by the great Lucien Ballard. Some critics such as Phil Hardy have sniffed a little at the film, and it's contemporary popularity, but I found it engrossing throughout, although admittedly it might have benefited from a little trimming. The mid-section, in which McQueen finds himself doing hard labour, then escaping, from a swamp-surrounded, brutalising prison camp reminded me of the (I think) weaker Papillion.
The real weakness to the film appears in the last section, when Sand/Smith is rescued from Malden's gang by a priest to be then reminded, by way of belated balance to Keith's earlier lessons, of the virtues of forgiveness and Christian forbearance. To a modern viewer this moral lesson seems a little laboured, and does little to make the final scene of the film psychologically convincing, ultimately leaving the principal character redeemed without purpose. Such considerations are striking given moments elsewhere, when the viewer can see the influence of the cynicism and violence of the genre which flowered elsewhere during the mid-sixties.
However if you haven't caught this yet I do recommend it, especially in the fine widescreen DVD edition now available. It's short on extras but the image and condition of the print is fine.
Nevada Smith benefits greatly from Hathaway's leisurely outdoor directorial style, familiar from such personal favourites as The Sons of Katie Elder and North to Alaska as well as some excellent mise en scene cinematography by the great Lucien Ballard. Some critics such as Phil Hardy have sniffed a little at the film, and it's contemporary popularity, but I found it engrossing throughout, although admittedly it might have benefited from a little trimming. The mid-section, in which McQueen finds himself doing hard labour, then escaping, from a swamp-surrounded, brutalising prison camp reminded me of the (I think) weaker Papillion.
The real weakness to the film appears in the last section, when Sand/Smith is rescued from Malden's gang by a priest to be then reminded, by way of belated balance to Keith's earlier lessons, of the virtues of forgiveness and Christian forbearance. To a modern viewer this moral lesson seems a little laboured, and does little to make the final scene of the film psychologically convincing, ultimately leaving the principal character redeemed without purpose. Such considerations are striking given moments elsewhere, when the viewer can see the influence of the cynicism and violence of the genre which flowered elsewhere during the mid-sixties.
However if you haven't caught this yet I do recommend it, especially in the fine widescreen DVD edition now available. It's short on extras but the image and condition of the print is fine.