HOMBRE I have always had a strange relationship as a film fan to Paul Newman. Particularly when I was young I would have told you that the man just bugged me. I couldn't tell you why. Just that he did. And yet, two of my favourite movies then, and even now, are Cool Hand Luke and Hombre, both starring Paul Newman. I met the man once. I was doing security for a film read through, a film that never got made. We weren't told who the stars were or what the film was. Just that security was needed and we should be ready for anything. As people began to gather around the table to read, a few relatively minor stars then, showed up and immediately began to make obnoxious demands. They wanted to sit here or there. They needed a certain kind of water. They needed chairs for their entourages. And then Newman came bounding up the stairs in sneakers. No entourage. No fuss. Greeted every single person in the room. Did the reading. Thanked everyone. And left. And I remember thinking "Now, that's a real movie star. He doesn't need to prove a thing to anyone.". Yet that strange mental block remains. I can't bring myself to admit that I'm a Paul Newman fan. Perhaps it was because I was so obsessed with Steve McQueen as a kid. Still am. And I'm sure that I read somewhere early on that McQueen hated Newman because he felt Newman kept getting the roles that they competed for. There is something in our brains that gravitates towards that either/or way of thinking. The fact is that Newman was a great actor and a pretty damn good human being by most accounts, including my own, despite it being a very brief encounter. And the fact is that I love Cool Hand Luke. And I love Hombre, one of the few adaptations of an Elmore Leonard Western that really worked. For those of you who don't know, Elmore Leonard tried his hand at Western novels before he got into the crime novels that he is now so well known for. And Leonard was a very good Western novelist as well. Hombre is a fine example of this. The premise of a white man raised by Apache being forced to protect a group of white people that he doesn't care for, plays brilliantly with our ideas about what we call civilized behaviour. The most 'Civilized' person in the novel, a well educated, well manored professor has stolen money meant to feed the Apache people and shows us again and again his naked greed. While the man they all consider to be the least civilized, the white man who prefers the Apache to his own people, is the only one who shows integrity and courage. This conflict bubbles under the surface of a very good period Western, and in the film, Newman does a remarkable job of capturing Apache like mannerism. I lived among the Apache and Navajo on the Salt River Reserve in Southern Arizona, and I can tell you that they are a very special and unique people, even amongst other Natives. They do not move or talk or even seem to think like other people. There is a stillness to the Apache, and inner toughness, almost certainly derived from living in barren desert mountain terrain. And Newman captures that spirit extremely well. Frederic March, one of the great actors of early films, including Inherit the Wind, is excellent as the civilized yet greedy Dr. Favor and Richard Boone is impressively menacing as the main villain, Grimes. But it is Newman's movie through and through. He delivers a wonderful speech masterfully about the state of the Apache people, while cooped up in a mining shack with the others, all the while remaining unknowably stoic and still throughout. I don't know if you can argue that Hombre is a great Western. But it is definitely a very good one. And it is still definitely one of my favourite movies of all time. Maybe it's time that I admit that I am a Paul Newman fan. Maybe it's time I came out of the closet about Paul Newman. It's definitely time to admit that he is the star of two of my favourite movies of all time, Hombre and Cool Hand Luke. There I said it. I said that much. I love Hombre. I like Paul Newman. And I don't care who knows it.

The subject and the story are commendable. A revisionist Western if there was one. Racism against the native Indians is highlighted. So are the negative traits of the white men who made money out of the subjugation of the the native Indians. Even the attitudes towards Mexicans are well etched.Ultimately, the film is all about values and humanism and less about killing.The opening sequence of the black stallion leading wild horses is amazing.Ritt is a director who was a cut above the rest, especially his films on anti-racism (Edge of the City, The Great White Hope). He chose his subjects well.Commendable performances (Newman, Boone and Balsam) and a good script.

No need to tell that the cast is fantastic and the camera impressive.What impressed me the most were the use of time and the dialogues. The movie is extremely slow but never looses its tension. This is done in a way that seems to be forgotten in cinematography nowadays. Still the whole movie looks astonishingly modern.And the dialogues are just perfect. Deep, multi-layered, minimalistic. Probably the best written western ever - next to Garden of Evil (Frank Fenton) and Terror in a Texas Town (Dalton Trumbo).Same for the story: there is a clear similarity to stagecoach, but this time the evil guys are the white man. The only reasonable human, the white man raised by apaches, representing not a race but just a culture, wastes his life in that awkward moment, when he is dragged into the dubious moral concepts of the white.Wow!

John Russell's reply to thug robber David Canary after he has shot holes in the stage's waterbags and asks Russell how far he's going to go from the robbed and disabled Stagecoach. Canary then realizes this is the same man that smashed him in the face with a Rifle butt after he harassed two of Russell's Indian Friends at Delgados earlier in the film when Russell still looked like an Apache. Bad move on Canary's part as he gets shot in the face by Russell as well as Mitchell's character too.One of Newman's best performances from a film that didn't get that much attention until it reached the cable TV Market. All great performances from supporting Cast. After watching Richard Boone as PALADIN on TV for years it was quite amusing to see him as the Bad Guy. The scene where he takes the solder's stage ticket and the attempted assault of Maggie Blythe's character lets you know he's not really a nice guy.I have probably watched this Film at least 30+ times and I never get tired of it. Aside from the costcutting phony blood scene coming from Canary's face after being shot by Russell.(which was added optically in post editing) this film has always been one of my Favorites. If HUD had been shot in color I would probably give it the Nod for a slightly better film, but both had outstanding performances by Newman..s.m.