5. “3:10 To Yuma” (1957)
The reason we’re here and hopefully the Criterion reissue of this tense, deceptively rich Western, the second-ever Leonard adaptation will restore it to the reputation it deserves. The plot is stripped-down and almost high-concept: when a feared and murderous outlaw, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford, who would finish up his career with another Leonard adaptation, the made-for-TV “Border Shootout“) is captured, rancher Dan Evans (Van Helfin, who also returned to Leonard late in his career, in the 1969 “Big Bounce“) volunteers to put him on the eponymous train to face justice. But Wade’s men are determined to get him back. Unlike in James Mangold’s remake, director Delmer Daves keeps the focus laser-tight on the relationship between Wade and Evans, the two actors proving to have killer chemistry, and Halsted Welles‘ script gives plenty of complexity to their relationship (and there’s a striking modernity in the way some of the supporting cast are drawn). While it’s almost by necessity a talky affair, Daves is careful to keep the ticking clock, and the ever-closer threat of Wade’s men, continuously on the viewer’s mind. It’s surprisingly brutal, too; nothing in the 2007 version can match the power of when Charlie Prince kills the good-natured town drunk and hangs him from a chandelier. Daves handles the action well when it finally comes with the final dash to the station proving positively white-knuckle, thanks to all the tension that’s come before. It probably doesn’t quite rank with the finest of the genre, but it certainly comes across well in comparison to the similarly-premised, but preachier “High Noon,” for instance. [B]
4. “Get Shorty” (1995)
The film that single-handedly revived interest in putting Leonard on screen, “Get Shorty” was one of the first films to surf the post-Tarantino wave. In fact, given that producer/star Danny DeVito‘s Jersey Films had also backed “Pulp Fiction” the year before, one can only assume that they knew what they had when they put its star, John Travolta, into production on “Get Shorty.” But what stands out about the film nearly two decades on is the way that it doesn’t fall into the traps of simply aping Tarantino and company; this is Leonard’s voice on screen pure and simple, thanks to a terrific screenplay by Scott Frank. It’s doubly impressive because the novel features one of the writer’s most tangled plots: Miami loan shark Chili Palmer (Travolta) is sent by his new boss (Dennis Farina) to track down the debt of a guy who’s faked his death in a plane crash, but Palmer ends up coming across B-movie producer Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) and pitching a film based on his own life. Zimm likes the idea, but is in trouble with drug dealer Bo Catlett (Delroy Lindo). And that’s not to forget Bo’s stuntman henchman Bear (James Gandolfini), diminutive movie star Martin Weir (DeVito), and his ex-wife Karen (Rene Russo), who takes a liking to Chili. There are a lot of players in the game, but Frank’s sharp script and the crisp direction by Barry Sonnenfeld keep things coherent, lightning-paced and consistently funny. The cast all tear into the roles with relish, with Hackman a particular standout, and we’d even argue that Travolta gets a more definitive and iconic part here than in “Pulp Fiction.” It might not have the soul of some of the films above it in this list, but “Get Shorty” gets right everything that its sequel “Be Cool” got wrong and that’s more than enough to put it in the top tier. [B+]
3. “Hombre” (1967)
Probably the best-known of the Leonard adaptations until “Get Shorty” came along and probably beating the original ‘Yuma’ to the title of his finest western (so far), “Hombre” combines the smart and complex character dynamics of that film with the social consciousness of “Valdez Is Coming,” wraps it up with stylish and muscular direction, and puts a soild-gold movie-star performance atop it. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a cracker. Paul Newman (reunited with his “Hud” director Martin Ritt) stars as John Russell, an Arizona white man raised by the Apache, who returns to his birthplace to claim his inheritance. But on the way back, his stagecoach is held up by Grimes (Richard Boone, virtually reprising his role in “The Tall T,” though he’s even better here), who makes off with the wife of fellow passenger Dr. Favor (Fredric March), who like the other travelers, shows no small amount of prejudice towards Russell. To further complicate matters, it turns out that Favor has stolen a large sum of money from Russell’s tribe. The screenplay (by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr) expertly sets up the characters in the opening, so that by the time the shit hits the fan, everyone’s clearly defined, their conflicts and clashes lining up organically, and every actor more than rises to the occasion, not least Newman, who’s righteous, rage-filled and effortlessly badass. Like ‘Yuma,’ it’s something close to a siege movie, but it’s even more breathlessly tense and the final half-hour or so is a killer sequence. It also manages to be about something — the mistreatment of Native Americans, prejudice in general — in a way that lifts it above some of the pulpier Leonard western adaptations. Somewhat overlooked over years, maybe this should be on Criterion’s hit-list now that they’ve got ‘Yuma’ in the bag… [A-]
2. “Jackie Brown” (1997)
It was a bit of a “Sophie’s Choice” picking between the two films atop this list; not just because they’re two rich, phenomenally made, wonderfully acted crime films, but because they’re inextricably linked in our minds — released less than a year apart, and even sharing a character in a way that, in an alternate universe, might have led to some kind of “Avengers“-style Elmore Leonard team-up movie. Ultimately, we went with Quentin Tarantino‘s “Jackie Brown” in the number two slot, but that shouldn’t be read as a slight to the film, a spectacular piece of work in its own right. Based on Leonard’s 1992 novel “Rum Punch,” it follows the titular flight attendant (Pam Grier, in an astonishing comeback role), who gets caught smuggling money for gun-runner Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). He plans to kill her to tie up the loose ends, but with the help of sympathetic bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster), she sets out to play the sides against each other and gets out free, clear, and rich. Tarantino’s film runs a hefty two-and-a-half-hour, but while it’s arguably his slowest film, he absolutely justifies the real estate; the plot has time to unfold properly and we get to dig into all the principals, including somewhat fringe-y characters like Robert De Niro‘s Louis (one of his very best turns) and Bridget Fonda‘s Melanie. Tarantino and Leonard’s voices meld perfectly, creating something that’s true to the source material while doing its own thing and the direction is mature — slick, but mostly getting out of the way of the story. It’s a rare outing in Tarantino’s oeuvre where he’s making a film that isn’t about other films (there are some Blaxploitation nods, but they’re fairly thin), but about people. In the outstanding, melancholy turns from Grier and Forster in particular, the film gets a big bold heart that the director hasn’t yet managed to recapture. [A+]
