Nevada Smith
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Nevada Smith |
| Original title | Nevada Smith |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1966 |
| length | 128 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Henry Hathaway |
| script | John Michael Hayes |
| production | Henry Hathaway |
| music | Alfred Newman |
| camera | Lucien Ballard |
| cut | Frank Bracht |
| occupation | |
| |
Nevada Smith is a 1966 American western directed by Henry Hathaway . Story and screenplay submitted by John Michael Hayes , inspired by the figure of the "Nevada Smith" from the novel The Insatiable ( The Carpetbaggers ) by Harold Robbins , who already in 1964 , directed by Edward Dmytryk under the same title was filmed.
action
In the 1890s: A gang consisting of Tom Fitch, Bill Bowdre and Jesse Coe asks young Max Sand, a half-breed , for directions to his parents' house. Then they drive his horse away so that he cannot follow them, and Max realizes that his parents are in danger. When he finally manages to get home, he finds his father, a white man, and his mother, an Indian, just dead. Brutally murdered by the bandits because they believed that Max's father was a success as a gold digger and they tried in vain to extort his find from him. Max decides to take revenge on the perpetrators and sets off alone to find them.
Some time later, a traveling arms dealer named Jonas Cord takes him under his wing by providing the starved boy with food, and teaches him to shoot because he thinks he is completely helpless. Max teaches himself to read, but also pays for information about the whereabouts of the wanted. First he finds Jesse Coe and takes him to a cattle pen with a knife, where he himself is badly wounded. He finds refuge in an Indian settlement where the Kiowa Neesa takes care of him.
After his recovery he learns that Bill Bowdre is currently incarcerated in a prison camp in the Louisiana swamps . Max seems to commit a bank robbery in order to get himself locked up and locked up in this camp. He sneaks the trust of Bowdr, who does not recognize him, and with the help of the Cajun woman Pilar they manage to escape. On the way through the swamps he finally recognizes Bowdre and shoots him. The girl dies of a snakebite. Sand recovers for some time in a monastery, where the priest tries to persuade him to give up his further revenge.
Ultimately, Max locates Tom Fitch, whom he is applying for as a gang member under the common name Nevada Smith . The extremely suspicious Fitch thinks he recognizes Max, but is not sure and sets him a few psychological traps to find out, but Max passes these tests with flying colors. In this way he succeeds in gaining Fitch's trust, and he accompanies his gang on a raid. Even when they happened to meet the arms dealer Cord, who called him Max several times, his camouflage was not revealed.
Ultimately, he leaves Fitch badly injured after a showdown on the banks of a river and refrains from killing him, realizing that Fitch is not worth the powder for the fatal shots.
background
The exterior shots for this exceptionally tough western were filmed in New Orleans and various locations in California . Max Sand is said to be 16 years old, McQueen was 35 at the time of filming.
Reviews
Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz rated Nevada Smith in their lexicon "Films on TV" with 2½ out of 4 possible stars as "above average" and describe it as a "bloody drama about self-discovery and vigilante justice".
The lexicon of the international film wrote that the "exciting quality western" offers a "clever mix of psychodrama, colorful romance and varied adventure entertainment".
Wesley Lovell wrote in the Apollo Movie Guide that the best thing to say about Nevada Smith is that the movie "go in, do what to do, and leave before it's too late." Although it shows the main character maturing, it does not satisfy the audience. The portrayal of Steve McQueen is "reasonable" ("decent"), whose emotional range is limited. The director has no eye for details, and above all he shouldn't have done without close-ups.
On July 15, 1966, an unnamed author in Time found that Steve McQueen looked as if he were more comfortable in the seat of a Harley-Davidson than in the saddle of a horse. The landscapes are disproportionately magnificent.
Jens Golombek ambiguously discussed in Das große Film-Lexikon a "[...] crude story of revenge that the spaghetti westerns couldn't tell better", and noted that it was "excessively long". He joins a US critic who was of the opinion that McQueen was doing justice to his role.
Awards
The film was nominated for the US Golden Laurel in 1967 and took fifth place.
Web links
- Nevada Smith in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Nevada Smith at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Filming locations for Nevada Smith (1966). In: IMDb . IMDb.com, Inc., accessed January 3, 2008 .
- Jump up ↑ This and That for Nevada Smith (1966). In: IMDb . IMDb.com, Inc., accessed March 28, 2008 .
- ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: Lexicon "Films on Television" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 607
- ^ Nevada Smith. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Apollo Guide: Nevada Smith ( Memento November 3, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), accessed June 29, 2017.
- ^ Odyssey of Vengeance. In: Time . July 15, 1966, accessed on March 29, 2008 (English): "[...] he looks as if he would be more at home in the saddle of a Harley-Davidson than on a horse."
- ↑ Jens Golombek in: Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf, Willy Loderhose (Hrsg.): Das große Film-Lexikon. All top films from A-Z . Second edition, revised and expanded new edition. Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89324-126-4 , p. 2066 f .