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.
