Hombre

Martin Ritt made six films with Paul Newman, including The Long Hot Summer (1958), Hud (1963) and today's feature, Hombre (1967). This adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel is a solid if somewhat derivative Western.

John Russell (Paul Newman) is a white man raised by Apaches. After his father passes away, Russell returns to claim his inheritance, immediately facing prejudice and distrust from his white neighbors. He joins a stagecoach party, hoping to sell his property in the nearest town, but the coach is hijacked by Cicero Grimes (Richard Boone), a repulsive, sadistic bandit. After being robbed, Russell and his fellow passengers must escape or fight off Grimes's gang, with Russell extremely reluctant to help his prejudiced, self-serving colleagues.

Hombre is heavily steeped in the Civil Rights atmosphere of the late Sixties, but can't help but recycle scenes from previous Westerns. Newman and his Apache friends square off with bigoted bar flies in a lift from Anthony Mann's Devil's Doorway, and the individualist forced to help a none-too-friendly society seems cribbed from The Far Country. Heck, the whole movie is a cynical revision of Stagecoach, with its complement of diverse passengers at each other's throats in crunchtime. Its message of cooperation and tolerance isn't particularly profound or original, as plot mechanics dictate Russell will come around eventually.

Still, Hombre is a solid film even with the liberal baggage. The film stops for lots of talk and exposition but Ritt and writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. handle it well. Its characters are the strength, with Russell one of the Western anti-heroes, his reluctance to help out his colleagues and general bitterness far more believable than James Stewart's similar character in The Far Country. Cicero Grimes is a particularly hateful bad guy, a schoolyard bully with a sadistic streak: his browbeating a soldier (Larry Ward) into giving up his ticket is a chillingly believable sequence, marking Grimes as irredeemably evil yet all-too-real. With its wonderfully enigmatic protagonist and hateful bad guy, Hombre hits all the right dramatic notes.

Hombre probably could have used a bit of dramatic economy, with too many characters cluttering up the narrative: the squabbling young couple in particular does little to justify their existence, and Cameron Mitchell's crooked Sheriff is too underdeveloped for his treachery to have any affect. Still, Ritt keeps the story moving at a crisp pace and the film is never less than interesting. The shootouts are kept modestly-scaled and believable, with some shocking bits of violence: Russell shooting an unarmed Grimes in the back is a nastiness beyond even Clint Eastwood's darkest roles.

Paul Newman gives a solid turn, playing Russell as a tough, laconic, quietly conflicted anti-hero. Richard Boone (The Shootist) is a superlative villain, easily one of the big screen's most hateful, intimidating bad guys. Barbara Rush gets to dispense sanity and wit in her choice role, and Frederic March (Inherit the Wind) does well against-type as the slimy Indian agent. Frank Silvera (Killer's Kiss) is memorable as Boone's talky second-banana and Martin Balsam (Al Capone) has a nice supporting rurn. The rest of the cast is disposable, especially Peter Lazer and Margaret Blye's obnoxious couple.

For all its flaws, Hombre is still a solid, well-structured oater and definitely worth a look. Its message and plot are pretty straight-forward but it's a familiar tale well-told.