Joe Kidd

Excellent and certainly underrated Clint Eastwood western, this time directed by John Sturges and designed very much to cash in on the Spaghetti Westerns Eastwood made with Sergio Leone; you only have to look at the credits to see the wealth of talent involved including a screenplay by none other than Elmore Leonard. Clint is the titular "Joe Kidd" who finds himself in the middle of a war between cold-blooded landowner Robert Duvall and a group of Mexicans lead by John Saxon. There's nothing very original about the plot but it gallops through its less than niney minutes running time and makes for a very entertaining Saturday Afternoon Matinee movie. It's also well cast throughout and boasts some beautiful location photography by the great Bruce Surtees.