It should have been magnificent - from a screenplay by Elmore Leonard, John Sturges in the director's seat and Clint Eastwood as the star. What could be better? An iconic western director, a western actor who is arguably only second to John Wayne in genre association and a script taken from a man who wrote some brilliant western fiction and yet despite all this the film simply refuses to gell. It's a ponderous western that is quite frankly boring.
Eastwood plays the drunken, unlikeable Joe Kidd who ends up taking the law into his own hands when he goes up against a rotten ranching tycoon played by Robert Duvall. So far so good but it's as if no-one was sure what kind of story they were telling in this Leonesque westerns that may try to emulate the Italian masters' style but ends up alienating and even worse, boring the viewer.
The scene where Eastwood drives a train through a saloon is brilliant but that in
itself can not save a truly bad movie. At times the films seems to be taking a philosophical route and comparing the action of Eastwood's character with those of Duvall's and at other times it seems to be aiming to a straight forward action vehicle. As a result this may be the lesser known of Eastwood's westerns.Elmore Leonard was dismayed at the way his script was mangled and he publicly stated that the fault with the movie was that everyone, Clint included, gave too much power to director Sturges who didn't understand Leonard's story at all. Both Eastwood and Duvall's characters were altered so much that they were unrecognisable from the original script.
It wasn't helped that Sturges was drinking heavily throughout the shoot and for the most part Eastwood was ill - it was thought he had developed an allergy to horses but this later turned out to be, that he was allergic to cats. Clint became so ill that rumours were leaked to the press and filled many gossip columns.
When the film was released, to dismal performances at the box office and even wore critical reception, Eastwood threatened that his days of the western were behind him. Thankfully he didn't stick to this and has since delivered many all time genre classics.
5 comments:
I always wondered what the hell happened with that movie. It was just like a bizarre lost episode of the Spaghetti years or something.
I've always avoided "Kidd" for some odd reason and back in the days when local TV stations used to show movies, they had it on enough (most likely because they could air it for next to nothing). Probably the fact that I've never heard anyone mention at all is the factor, but it's nice of you to take that bullet so that I don't have to waste my time with it.
That would've been a huge disservice if Clint had decided to pack his western career in, because the profitability and critical success of "Unforgiven" was crucial to the getting the corporate heads of Hollywood to fund the genre past 1993.
I dunnno, I've always liked this movie. You can tell that Leonard's vision wasn't strictly followed, but still, stuff like when Clint pulls that guy down the ladder is classic Elmore. And I think Duvall kills.
Duvall dominates the movie, true enough.
I have a nostalgic fondness for the movie (it was one of many westerns that I dragged my poor wife to on dates in summer '72, just before we were married). The generic sets, a game but unconvincing John Saxon, and the phony-looking train crash at the end are drawbacks. But Robert Duvall, Don Stroud, Paul Koslo, and Jim Wainwright are grade-A badguys.
Post a Comment