Valdez Is Coming

Valdez Is Coming, adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name, was theater director Edwin Sherin's first work in film, with a screenplay by Roland Kibbee and David Rayfiel, shot in Spain. Burt Lancaster plays Valdez, a Mexican-American former cavalry trooper now working as a constable in a border town, who accidentally kills an innocent man during an attempted arrest and is humiliated by a wealthy rancher while trying to raise compensation for the widow. The film underperformed at the box office when it opened on April 9, 1971, and contemporary reviews found it overly melodramatic, though it later gained a cult following. Like Martin Ritt's Hombre (1967), it draws on one of Leonard's westerns that places a hero of minority background against racial prejudice. Who it's for: anyone curious about an Elmore Leonard adaptation, initially a box office disappointment that later found a cult following, about a hero standing against racial prejudice. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a classic, one dimensional western hero, since Valdez carries a complicated past.