13. “The Moonshine War” (1970)
A curious entry in the Leonard filmography, based on one of his lesser-known early novels (which also recently lent its name, if little else, to a “Justified” episode), “The Moonshine War” is a sort of 1970s answer to “Lawless” and proves to be just as unsatisfying when it comes to capturing Prohibition-era criminality. The convoluted plot sees corrupt internal revenue agent Frank Long (“The Prisoner” star Patrick McGoohan) come to Kentucky to see if he can get a cut of the moonshining business of his army buddy Son Martin (Alan Alda). The two fall out and Long brings the psychotic Dr. Taulbee (Richard Widmark) into the mix. Director Richard Quine (“How To Murder Your Wife“), working from a script by Leonard himself, never quite gets to grips with the story, in part because the character’s motivations often feel nebulous. But that’s the least of the problems with the performances. Widmark makes an entertaining villain (backed up by musician Lee Hazlewood, of all people), but McGoohan and Alda are both wildly miscast, struggling with the accents, rarely convincing, and in the former’s case, swinging for the hills in a way that comes across as faintly embarrassing. Quine’s nodding to Arthur Penn with his direction, but there’s little flair here and it feels pedestrian throughout. Lower your expectations and you might have a reasonable time with it, but there’s little reason for even the most ardent Leonard fan to track it down. [C-]
12. “Valdez Is Coming” (1971)
Elmore Leonard‘s career both as a writer and onscreen is roughly divided into two eras — he started off as a writer of short stories and novels in the western genre, but from the mid-1970s onwards has almost exclusively figured moved into more contemporary fare. His movies have followed that pattern too; most of the earlier adaptations were of western novels or stories, but now, the likes of “3:10 To Yuma” are the outliers. Probably the least of those early Westerns was “Valdez Is Coming,” a passable, but creaky vehicle for Burt Lancaster. The legendary star plays the title character, a part-Mexican constable who stands up against Tanner (Jon Cypher), the corrupt rancher who caused him to gun down an innocent man. Valdez tries to raise some money from Tanner for the widow, but the villain responds by forcing the lawman to carry a wooden cross into the desert — Christ allegories ahoy! But they made a mistake not finishing him off and he recovers, dons his old cavalry uniform, and returns for vengeance. A borderline Spaghetti Western (US-backed, but shot in Spain), it’s a neat setup, but its themes of bigotry in the Old West were tackled better elsewhere and the unsteady hand of director Edwin Sherin, a theater veteran whose screen career never really got going, makes it feel awkward, poorly paced and half-cocked. Even the star turn doesn’t quite come off. Lancaster’s as solid as ever, but time hasn’t been kind to his brown-face turn here, leaving Richard Jordan as a bug-eyed villain to walk away with the acting honors. [C]
11. “Joe Kidd” (1972)
While Leonard’s come to the screen many times and often received screenwriting credit on the adaptation (mostly on films where he was heavily rewritten and proved to be unhappy with; it’s worth noting that most of the top picks on this list feature no writing contribution from Leonard), the novelist never took to original screenplays in the way that you might imagine for a writer who’s so adept with dialogue and plotting. But there are a couple of decent exceptions to that in the early 1970s, the first of which is “Joe Kidd,” an original western screenplay that teamed two other giants of the genre: star Clint Eastwood, and director John Sturges (“The Magnificent Seven,” “Bad Day At Black Rock“). Eastwood plays the title character, a jail-bound bounty hunter press-ganged into a posse led by corrupt landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall), to capture Mexican revolutionary John Chama (John Saxon). There’s certainly a reason that the existence of the film probably comes as a surprise to all, but the hardiest Clint-heads or Western fans: it’s a pretty unashamed B-picture, one shot through with the sense of social justice that’s so common in Leonard’s western work, but ultimately breaks little ground, especially with Clint on something close to autopilot (it’s worth noting that the actor’s next two westerns were the far-more boundary-pushing “High Plains Drifter” and “The Outlaw Josey Wales“). That said, the film’s still a lot of fun, especially when it comes to Duvall’s loathsome but textured bad guy and some cracking action, which peaks as Kidd drives a train to a saloon (not exactly at high speed, it should be said…). Hardly an undiscovered classic, but if it was on TV on a Sunday afternoon, you’d be unlikely to turn it off. [C+]
10. “Mr. Majestyk” (1974)
And then there was the second of his original screenplays — which went on to be turned into a novel by Leonard, entering his canon for real as a result. It’s better-known status is also helped in that it’s a favorite of Quentin Tarantino (it’s referred to in the dialogue of “True Romance,” and the poster can be glimpsed on Michael Madsen‘s wall in “Kill Bill Volume 2“) even before he adapted Leonard himself. Originally written by Leonard for Eastwood (presumably Clint lost interest after “Joe Kidd” opened to mediocre reviews and worse box-office), it soon became a vehicle for Charles Bronson, who takes the title role of a Vietnam vet turned melon farmer who ends up capturing a mobster (Al Lettieri) who’s behind the protection racket that’s been threatening his business. There’s a certain amount of (mostly) unintentional humor in Majestyk’s obsessions with his melon crop, but it’s otherwise a highly competent pretty straight-ahead action flick. Free of the questionable politics of the “Death Wish” series (indeed, its pro-union stance places it on the other side of the aisle in many ways), it gives Bronson one of his best roles of the period, with Lettieri proving to be an excellent adversary for him. And while it takes a little while to really get going, the third act is cracking, with blood and melons flying, and genre specialist Richard Fleischer (“Solyent Green,” “Tora! Tora! Tora!“) handling the action with aplomb. Leonard wrote the story up as a novel while the film was in production and it hit bookshelves at about the same time as the movie; it’s probably better on the page, though it’s still not one of his top flight works. [B-]
