The Weekend Western: Valdez is Coming

Burt Lancaster as a Mexican! The idea probably sounds ridiculous…I mean Burt looks about as Mexican as George W. Bush does an Arab…and yet, a bit of make-up and a first class performance and Burt becomes Bob Valdez, ex-cavalry scout and current lawman (on the Mexican side of town of course).

Many a ‘70s western mirrored hot topics in the here and then, with Viet Nam an obvious target (Soldier Blue and Ulzana’s Raid). It’s not war but race that’s at the heart of Valdez is Coming and considering it offers up a black man murdered for a crime he didn’t do, a pregnant Indian woman now a homeless widow and the browbeaten, and later just plain beaten, Bob Valdez, you’d have to be a little slow on the uptake not to get the film’s message.

For all that the film doesn’t feel preachy, the subtext never getting in the way of what is a damn fine action western. In lesser hands Valdez’s transformation from submissive lawman to a one man guerrilla army would be ridiculous (particularly for someone of his advanced years) but Lancaster makes it real. Bob knows the land, knows the people and, most importantly, knows how to handle a gun (he carries a small arsenal) and Burt, in the way he handles that array of weapons, the way he moves and interacts with the environment, makes it all real.

The supporting cast is pretty good too, from up-and-comers like Richard Jordon as a young hothead (the sort of part he played a lot early in his career) and Hector Elizondo’s hired gun to Jon Cypher as the main villain (a world away from Hill Street Blues) and Susan Clark as the cause of much of the films strife. Best of all is Barton Heyman as Cypher’s right-hand man, El Segundo, a very bad man to be sure (he’s scarily moustachioed to prove it) but also a complex one, capable of respecting his adversary, far more in fact than he respects his boss.

Made in Spain the film has the feel and look of a spaghetti western but whereas most Italian make horse operas featured morally ambivalent anti-heroes, Bob Valdez has a just cause and a sense of personal honour that sets him apart.

In the late sixties and early seventies Burt Lancaster starred in several superior westerns. Some, like The Professionals are rightly regarded as classics but others are somewhat under appreciated. Valdez is Coming falls into that latter category, it’s a film that’s well worth a western fans time, primarily for Burt’s powerhouse performance, which I’d rank up there with his best.

January 27th, 2008 Posted by Ian W | Movie Reviews, Westerns | one comment