Rent Valdez Is Coming (1971)

Average, Brutal Western - Valdez Is Coming review by GI

Burt Lancaster continued to make westerns through the 60s and into the 70s, some of which have become celebrated as key additions to the genre (1972s Ulzana's Raid for example). Valdez Is Coming is the closest to the style that Sergio Leone had introduced in the 60s with it's bordertown setting, dry desert scenery, religious iconography and its uncompromising violence including torture scenes. As a result this is reasonably entertaining western but it lacks Leone's stylistic tongue-in-cheek vision of the west, it needs a rousing score and more disappointedly it lacks a satisfying climax. Director Edwin Sherin, in his first feature film (he went onto a more lucrative TV career), directs in a robotic way with some jarring editing and disconcerting jumps but one can't help but think that Lancaster, a known meddler, tampered here or overly influenced the films direction. Whatever the reason this film doesn't have the appeal of most of Lancaster's other westerns from this period. He plays Valdez, a Mexican sheriff, who is forced to kill a man unnecessarily and seeks compensation for the dead man's Indian wife from the man who caused the killing. This is a nasty gun runner played by Jon Cypher, who refuses to pay the humble sum requested. Instead he tortures Valdez who then kidnaps his woman (Susan Clark), takes her into the wilderness and then turns on the men who come after them. As I said the final confrontation is a huge damp squib! Susan Clark plays an enigmatic character that never really works and the film has Richard Jordan as a cocky gunslinger (he later worked with Lancaster in Lawman made the same year). This is watchable, and Lancaster is always interesting even here as a gentle Mexican with a violent past but overall this western is not one of his best.