NEVADA SMITH

Nevada Smith was a character in the hit 1964 film ‘The Carpetbaggers’, a former Wild West outlaw who becomes a film star.  Given that the film hints at Smith's early life being an eventful one, including a prison escape, someone had the bright idea of making this film two years later which tells the story of that life.

Who better to play Smith than rising superstar Steve McQueen who had already enjoyed success in both a Western (‘The Magnificent Seven’) and a prison escape film (‘The Great Escape’)?

Given that the whole thing is directed by veteran Henry Hathaway (who knows where to point the camera) and written by John Michael Hayes who had written the screenplay for 'The Carpetbaggers’ (not to mention 'Rear Window’ ten years earlier) what could possibly go wrong?

Well quite a lot as far as the critics were concerned, and I too found this a hard slog.  

For starters McQueen is badly miscast.  It’s not simply that he is about ten years too old, it’s more that the role isn’t a good fit for his limited range of acting skills. He’s playing a young man by the name of Max Sand (the change to Nevada Smith comes later) who is burning up with thoughts of revenge after his parents are horribly tortured and murdered, but McQueen, never the most expressive of actors, struggles to convey this.  He ends up producing a dour performance in which his trademark charm is sadly missing.

At 131 minutes the film is way too long and badly needs severe pruning.

The three men who murdered Max’s parents then go their different ways, so the film becomes  three mini stories as Max catches up with each of them, so an obvious way to shorten the running time would have been to ditch one of the three baddies, probably the first (played by Martin Landau).

Even then there would have been the problem that the characters tend to be two-dimensional and no dramatic momentum is created by with the screenplay or the direction.  Even decent actors such as Arthur Kennedy and Karl Malden struggle to breathe life into their roles.

The end result is a slow moving and overly long series of episodes that ultimately don't add up to very much.