HOMBRE (1967)

John Russell (Paul Newman), white guy raised by and lives with Apaches in 1880s Arizona, inherits a boarding house from his white father, which he sells immediately. He gets on a stagecoach out of town with an interesting bunch, including Cicero Grimes (Richard Boone, peerless bad guy), who's in with a group of holdup men who are after big bucks that one of the passengers, Dr. Favor (Frederick March) embezzled from Indians in his charge. The robbery leaves the passengers on foot and short of water, but the robbers without the money. The passengers, who dissed Russell, now need him to show them how to survive. The script (from an Elmore Leonard novel) is intelligent and sharp on the hypocrisy of the whites. Acting is superb, especially by Diane Cilento, as the tart-tongued boarding house manager Russell made jobless when he sold the place; Barbara Rush as Favor's world-weary wife; ever-versatile Martin Balsam (always good) as the stagecoach driver, and Frank Silvera (also always good) as one of the bad guys. One of my favorite Westerns.


Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.