Nevada Smith Reviews

This is an offbeat sequel to the trashy THE CARPETBAGGERS, presenting McQueen as the title character previously played by Alan Ladd, profiling the cowboy's early years. Here, before becoming a cowboy movie star, McQueen spends his time tracking down the killers of his parents, with the aid of gunsmith and sharpshooter Keith. He finally catches up with villains Kennedy and Landau and dispatches them. Hathaway does a creditable job with the tale and McQueen is outstanding as the incompetent youth who becomes an expert gunman and cowboy. (It is generally agreed that the Nevada Smith role was originally based on movie cowboy Ken Maynard.) The photography by Ballard is outstanding, as is Newman's score. Nevertheless, the film is too long, Pleshette's performance embarrassingly overacted, and the episodes presented are somewhat disjointed. Only McQueen's dynamic presence sustains viewer interest. This was a joint venture by McQueen's Solar Productions and Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures, one that unexpectedly met with box-office approval, gleaning well over $5 million in its initial release. The action in NEVADA SMITH is spectacular but the film is overloaded with excessive violence and sex. The location sites are awesome, paticularly the footage shot around Mammoth, Banner Peak, and Mount Ritter in northern California. For the episodes showing McQueen as a prisoner on a chain gang, the production moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where McQueen waded through chest-high slime in the bayous of the Atchafalaya Basin.