HOMBRE (1967)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Western

Director: Martin Ritt

Cast: Paul Newman / Diane Cilento / Richard Boone

Plot

A white man who grew up among Native Americans protects a group of white people stranded in the desert from a band of robbers.

What I Liked

By 1967, the American Western was finally beginning to grow up.  The bright-colored, impeccably clean, and entirely mythical West that had been the backdrop so many popular films, good and bad, from the 1930s to the 1950s was beginning to give way to a grimmer, dirtier, and more accurate (if only slightly) West.  “Hombre” and its title character are representative of the transition happening in the genre during this period.

In earlier decades, the white cowboy or lawman was almost always depicted as a morally upright man protecting the virginal women and lovable old folks from the wily and savage Indian marauders.  This happened so often in the Western that “cowboys and Indians” remains the quality most popularly associated with the genre to this day.  This film’s hero, alternately called John Russell or Hombre, defies those conventions because he is white by birth, but Native American by upbringing.  He seeks not to protect whites from Indians and is in fact disgusted by the behavior of whites.  The women are hardly virginal and the old man a traitorous thief.  They are all a burden to him and he treats them as such.  In truth, he doesn’t need to protect any whites from Indians; he winds up having to protect them from each other.  When one character says, “One thing you’ll learn about white people; we stick together,” the irony in the statement is so evident it’s not remotely funny.  Thus, thematically, “Hombre” takes its cues from more morally ambiguous American westerns like “The Searchers” and the so-called Spaghetti Westerns of Italy than from the Golden West of classic Hollywood.

What I Didn’t Like

With its hero being sympathetic to the Native American plight, “Hombre” also catered to the liberal, youth-culture tastes that were becoming increasingly popular and prevalent in American movies in this period.  While I don’t disagree with that sympathy, in this case it is so obvious that it lacks all subtlety.  It may defy the set conventions of the Western in this period, but it does so artlessly.  The characters are rather drab; the action doesn’t generate much tension; and the preaching is too heavy-handed.  The movie features several gratuitous scenes of Newman lecturing white people on how heartlessly they treat Indians.  Blue-eyed Paul Newman looked so out of place early on with long-hair that he just seemed silly.  Worst of all, for a movie that purports so clearly to respect Native Americans, it sure does ignore them.  Real Native Americans and their lifestyles are rarely seen.

Most Memorable Scene

When Richard Boone’s swarthy bad guy comes strolling into the same station where Newman’s character waits for a stage coach out of town, Boone makes himself known as the villain of the picture quickly.  He intimidates one guy out of his ticket and clearly sets himself up as Newman’s rival for control of the small group of people who will be traveling by coach for the rest of the movie.  While most of the movie is shot outdoors, this scene takes place inside.  The lighting is simple.  There is no music.  Just a simple scene where the movie’s two most important characters meet for the first time, which winds up being the standout moment of the film.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5