Category: John Saxon

By Marc S. Sanders

Joe Kidd is not one of Clint Eastwood’s best westerns.  In fact, it might be his weakest of the sort.  The film arrived at the tail end of director John Sturges’ (Bad Day At Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven) career and through my research it seems that Eastwood did not get along with him.  Sturges was rumored to be an alcoholic providing limited focus on the film in question.  I’m apt to believe that theory.  Joe Kidd, which was scripted by Elmore Leonard who would go on to write Get Shorty, is full of enormous plot holes. 

Eastwood is a welcome sight at first, handcuffed in the Sherrif’s jail until he’s unlocked to attend his court hearing.  Before leaving, in typical quiet, tough guy style, he demonstrates to an annoying cellmate that he won’t be intimidated by splashing the guy’s stew in his face and then denting the pot over his forehead.  It’s a great introduction for a title character.  I laughed.  I clapped.  After that, however, the movie fell apart.

The structure of Joe Kidd seems to start in the middle of a story that opted not to go back to the beginning.  A Mexican rebel leader named Luis Chama (John Saxon) causes some ruckus in the courtroom and around town, and then he flees into the nearby mountains.  Joe manages to shoot one gang member who enters the saloon.  Thereafter, a wealthy landsman named Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) arrives and after paying for Kidd’s bail, he hires the ex-bounty hunter to accompany his posse and bring back Chama and his squad.  According to Harlan, Chama is occupying a large chunk of valuable land and therefore has to be taken out of the equation.  Okay.  Simple enough.

However, the narrative zig zags from that point.  First, Joe declines the offer from Harlan.  Then he discovers that Chama has tied up one of his ranch hands in barbed wire.  So, he dons his perfect tough guy cowboy duds (his hat looks great on his head) and off he goes with Harlan.  Midway on their journey through the mountains, they set up camp at a Mexican church.  Harlan announces into the wide expanse, for Chama to hear, that he will kill five people in the church if he does not surrender himself.  After a period of time, he’ll kill five more until the Rebel gives himself in and so on and so on.  Joe Kidd does not agree with this arrangement, gets fired by Harlan and eventually sidles up with Chama.  What’s going on here?  Didn’t Joe want to even a score with Chama after what he did to his ranch hand?  In a short ninety-minute running time, set ups occur only to be undone minutes later, and I’m starting to question my ability for basic comprehension. 

To date, of all I’ve seen in Robert Duvall’s illustrious career, this is hands down the weakest character he’s portrayed.  He’s not a terrible actor here.  He just has nothing to do except look like a greedy landowner with a mustache and a six shooter on his hip.  He’s not given any dimension of material to play with, and thus comes off like a bad guy of the week on an episode of The A-Team.  John Saxon actually guest starred a few times on that show as a variety of different bad guys.  The only new thing I see from him in this picture is his unconvincing Mexican accent. 

Clint Eastwood is playing his typical westerner.  He looks great with the hat and stature and the gun in his hand.  Yet, the novelty looks tired here.  As if we’ve already seen him in other classics like the Dollars trilogy, and High Plains Drifter.  There was nothing new to offer with Joe Kidd.  A diversion occurs early on where Kidd is about to take advantage of Harlan’s girl.  That goes nowhere and serves no purpose.

I imagine there was a better and more fleshed out script here that never materialized.  A friend of mine recently asked me if it would make sense to remake films with potentially good ideas that were poorly executed.  Seems logical to me, and then he asked me to name some examples.  On the spot, I could not come up with one.  Howard The Duck? Never!  Green Lantern?  Yeah, that’ll likely be done eventually anyway.  However, I think I have come across a good one to consider.  How about remaking Joe Kidd? 

You know what?  Wouldn’t work.  There’s a tone to the piece that seems a little prejudiced and not appropriate for present day. More importantly, on another try, it wouldn’t have the main attraction. 

Has anyone remade a Clint Eastwood picture? 

My point exactly!