Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Stay up-to-date on all the latest Rotten Tomatoes news! I have watched this movie many times and enjoy it very much. Exciting formulaic revenge Western (made in Spain) as directed by Edwin Sherin (helmed The Great White Hope on Broadway) in his debut feature film that is adapted from a novel by Elmore Leonard. It is our intent and purpose to foster and encourage in-depth discussion about all things related to books, authors, genres, or publishing in a safe, supportive environment. Whatever else I take off depends on how lucky I get.". The film is based on the 1970 Elmore Leonard novel of the same name. RL Davis is sent on his way when he is told by Frank that he couldn't shoot straight. Valdez Is Coming (1971) PG-13 | 90 min | Action, Western | 9 April 1971 (USA) A Mexican-American sheriff must resort to violence against a powerful rancher in order to get just compensation for the pregnant Indian widow of a wrongly killed black man. Its to be expected, though, that the protagonist will have some depth, so what I appreciated more is the way key secondary characters also have their own motives and their distinct roles to play in the denouement, including Gay herself but also Tanners segundo. One of the best bits in the novel is whollyinessential to its plot but adds a great deal to the atmosphere and to our sense of the kind of world its characters live in. The putting him against the wall and tying him to the cross had made it something else. This is a moderated subreddit. Mind you, this is also very formulaic, but some of the action is unforgettable, particularly when the villains make fun of Bob Valdez and tie a cross to his back and force him to walk through the desert at high noon. I wonder it the way that Portis is anti-western works with certain detective fiction. Roland Kibbee and David Rayfiel handle the screenplay duties. This is a great movie, one that deserves watching by anyone interested in the Western, and any Elmore Leonard fan. What I love about that line, and the other splendid lines throughout that script, is that they reveal character and the place that character came from in a special way no actor could do on his own. When Valdez confrontsTanner,whose wrong identification led to the shooting, with his proposals, Tanners men test his nerve by using the wall around him for target practice: Valdez felt his hat move and felt powder dust from the adobe brick in his eyes and in his nose and felt chips of adobe sting his face and hands and felt a bullet plow into the wall between his knees and a voice say, A little higher you get him good., He keeps his cool, staring them down and eventually, when Tanners segundo calls enough, riding away. That, should be the premise of this story. I used to think Kennedy came up with that line, and several other gems from the same film, but it turns out they were all from an Elmore Leonard short story called "The Captives," which Leonard sold to Argosy magazine for a hundred bucks in 1955, and which was eventually turned into this 1957 film. Valdez Is Coming features a grim, unadorned romanticism. Valdez wins and Tanner loses everything. Inside, she was wild as mountain scenery.". StarringBurt Lancaster Susan Clark Frank Silvera Jon Cypher Richard Jordan Directed byEdwin Sherin Largely seen as a revisionist western, it's actually fairly traditional for the most part until an ending that was so surprisingly low-key I thought the last couple of minutes had been cut off.. Listen, Touch of Evil Valdez Is Coming's playing near my hotel. 3) Hogwarts Legacy Game Review. I can only think of The Count of Monte Cristo as an example of its use in 19th century literature. Talk softly and carry a big gun -- a really big gun! Parts of the movie reminded me of Point Blank and Payback. Old Mexican-American sheriff Bob Valdez has always been a haven of sanity in a land of madmen when it came to defending law and order. I'm sorry I never got to meet him, to tell him how those lines in "The Tall T" inspired me in my own writing, to tell him how proud I was to be part of a show he was at the heart of. Tanner basically has proven that he lacks courage in front of his men, and he's not willing to risk his life to get Gay Erin back. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your email. Your email address will not be published. The photograph of Valdez with the 7th Cavalry has a several errors. He tried to raise his left arm but could not. The resulting confrontation was instigated by thoroughly nasty land baron Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher), who turns out to be a very bad guy indeed. Today, Elmore Leonard is primarily known for his crime fiction. <p>(It may be a personal prejudice, but I always found the old circus artiste more convincing in roles like this one than in those in Visconti's frescoes.) The moments of brutal violence pack a pretty harsh punch and the ending is pleasingly ambiguous. It's a tale of the meek (not the weak) versus the arrogant. It is an example of what became known as a "paella Western"; although the setting is ostensibly the American West, it was actually shot in southern Spain. Did the theme more or less disappear from literature after that? Valdez is Coming isn't breaking any new ground: a man goes on a revenge quest after being wronged by a powerful rancher, in a plot involving gunfights, ambushes and wilderness tracking. In this movie, Valdez appears as a part-time shotgun rider on the Hatch & Hodges stagecoach. Appalling! His lumbering presence, dead pan line delivery, and domineering stature all speak to a type of man that doesnt exist in movies much. A few racial epithets later and we realize the man is (a) black and (b) possibly innocent of the crime he is accused of. Are there anti-detective novels out there? Valdez Is Coming boldly recreates America's western frontier, a place where life was sometimes cheap. Valdez tries to negotiate a peaceful settlement, as the hunted man says hes innocent. I still can't feature Burt as a Mexican, though. After Valdez is freed, he's ripe for revenge, abducting Tanners' woman Gay Erin (Susan Clark) as he gets ready for a final showdown. What transpires is a valuable lesson for all. The action scenes are pretty good. When Valdez persists, in kindness and gentle-care, Frank to pay $100, he is is attacked and roped to a wooden cross..they send him into the desert this way to perish. Young, mostly.". is not allowed, Heathcliff wont work. Davis, and Hector Elizondo pops up in a small part as a treacherous Mexican gunman. Indeed, the African-American had been trapped in a small cabin at the foot of a rise, and several rifleman had kept him pinned down in the structure. His side was hanging open and draining his life as he looked at the sky. . Press J to jump to the feed. I say "authentic-sounding," because as colorful as real Western folk are, few consistently speak with the poetic perfection of an Elmore Leonard line. Director Edwin Sherin, working from an engrossing script by Roland Kibbee and David Rayfiel, brings a plausibly gritty aesthetic as well as a provocative moral complexity to this simple, yet strong and compelling tale of justice, principle, and revenge. I like this idea about the similarity between detective fiction and western fiction. The image is an example of a ticket confirmation email that AMC sent you when you purchased your ticket. Perhaps it's because I've been more devoted to Westerns (as films) than any other genre for much of my adult life, or perhaps it's because (I find) his Westerns have been generally more successfully adapted to films. Tanner won't hear of it, however, and punishes Valdez by driving him into the desert with a cross strapped to his back. Director: Edwin Sherin Writers: Roland Kibbee (screenplay), David Rayfiel (screenplay) Finally, it might be (mildly) interesting to compare this novel to its original genesis, the short story Only Good Ones (found in the terrific Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard, available at a Books-a-Million near you). was Bob Valdez's reply when he was asked when he used to hunt and shoot down Indians to eradicate them from rangeland. Dialog that tells one story with words while telling a correlative story with the sounds of those words is rare and precious. With all the computer generated garbage being put in theaters today, it's good to be able to turn on the western channel and see some real acting again. But when he comes back a second time with the same request, Tanners men beat him, tie him to a cross, and send him crawling home or, more likely, to die in the dust and the sun. Comments that contribute civilly and constructively to discussion of the topics raised on this blog, from any point of view, are welcome. On top of this, the story is its own thing as it defies expectations left and right. I advise you to do the same. At the summary states, this film truly made an unusual casting decision by casting Burt Lancaster as a Hispanic man. For many Burt Lascaster fans, this is a classic role as he plays Constable Bob Valdez, an aging but experienced peace keeper. Copyright 2023 - Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews. When Tanner provokes a shooting that causes the death of an innocent man and Valdez asks him to financially compensate the widow, Tanner refuses to do so and severely humiliates Valdez, who will do justice and avenge his honor, no matter what it takes. The UK DVD has at least one horse tripping edited. Valdez sneaks into the compound and, during the ensuing gun battle and his escape, kidnaps Tanner's woman, Gay Erin (Susan Clark), for whose favors it is rumored that Tanner had her husband killed. The opening scene begins like a Sunday picnic/Turkey shoot: well-dressed couples in period costumes milling around, young boys plunking away with their new rifles. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Soundtracks submission guide. I think that spaghetti westerns have been way overrated. True Grit), or working hard to resist its temptations (e.g. 1971 #jolly exciting sequence# - YouTube 0:00 / 4:24 Valdez is coming! Leonard's characters talk the way real cowboys and ranchers and trainmen and schoolmarms would talk if they were poets. . If I were try to come up with a strict list of requirements, Cask would probably fail because the injuries to the narrator are never shown or even specified, and not knowing for what revenge is being taken dulls its edge considerably. Like he said at the ending of Get Shorty "Endings are hard.". Davis (Richard Jordan) shot up the hovel where the wrongly accused man and his Indian wife were trapped. The closest I came was meeting the writers of the show, two of whom were coincidentally named (Taylor) Elmore and Leonard (Chang). Valdez is told that a murdering black army deserter has holed up in a . In the early 1970s Burt Lancaster would have been in his late fifties, but (unlike some of his contemporaries who had opted for more sedentary roles) was still keeping himself fit and active in action roles. Burt Lancaster is fantastic and show's why he is and was a superstar. I never did. Please click the link below to receive your verification email. After taking out one rider with his shotgun, he tells him to send the message to Tanner "Valdez is coming". If Frankensteins monster (with whom I strongly sympathize and identify like me, he loves Goethe!) Davis finds him and cuts the ropes, freeing the unconscious man. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, or Moment of Vengeance, another Leonard story from that plump Complete Western collection). All entries copyright Rohan Maitzen. Moreover, Sherin not only makes excellent use of the arid desert locations, but also stages the exciting shoot-outs with real flair and skill. The murder suspect ends up dead, and Valdez believes that his Indian wife should be compensated. Valdez believes it would be a fair gesture to raise $200 for the widow, $100 from Tanner and the rest from others in town. He delivers it and then lies dying, and we spend nearly two pages with him as he reflects on Valdez, and on his own life and immanent death: He should have thought more about the way the man stood at the wall and watched them shoot at him. Valdez is coming! In Valdez is Coming, adapted from the co-titled Elmore Leonard novel, Leone's moralistically stark paradigm acquires a conscience and characters that, while as vividly drawn as the Master's, are discernibly more real. Just leave us a message here and we will work on getting you verified. Kudos are also in order for Gabor Pogany's crisp widescreen cinematography and the rousing dramatic score by Charles Gross. Coming Soon. Coming Soon. I havent seen a Western section in a new-book bookstore for some time, though they do occasionally show up in used book stores and sales. "Within the first half-hour of the movie, Bob Valdez (Lancaster) is humiliated, called a greaser, shot at and mock-crucified, all because he wants to raise $200 from the white men responsible (along with himself) for the killing of a black freed-man, a murder-suspect later known to have been innocent. This is an insult to Frank who is a racist pig who loathes the sight of "greaser" Valdez. It seemed simple because in the beginning it was simple, with the Lipan woman sitting at her husbands grave. Before it's over, Frank will, without a doubt, know that..Valdez is coming. A rebel explosion hurls the train off its track, killing Helen and compelling John to take his own life in the. I think the revenge plot requires a certain level of identity on the part of the reader / viewer with the avenger. And a film I watched just last month, Last Stand at Saber River, and it would seem that Leonard had a liking for delivering Western themed stories? The movie gets better and better as I age into an old man. Among them is Hector Elizondo as a Mexican Rider and R.L.Davis (Richard Jordon) as a cowardly opportunist. Show All, 91mins Valdez is Coming? The dead manwho was black, which also entered into the issueleft an Indian woman, and Valdez wants $200 to get her back to the reservation. Clearly, actors in talking pictures can't reveal character very well without dialog. The movie Valdez Is Coming In 1971, Burt Lancaster starred in the Edwin Sherin-directed western Valdez Is Coming. But the whole definition of pulp remains a problem that isnt going to get solved in the context of my class, thats for sure, since (as previously noted) the official description simply conflates pulp and genre fiction. Occasionally, a film arrives with little or no fanfare and surprises many who expected just another film. I dont know if the three short novels that make up Paul Austers New York Trilogy are considered anti-detective novels. 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