Valdez Is Coming (1971)

Proof, if it were ever needed, that scorning Burt Lancaster is a dangerous thing to do. Town deputy “Valdez”, a Mexican American veteran of the US cavalry, is tricked into killing a man accused of murder by local bigwig “Tanner” (Jon Cypher) and so he demands some compensation for his pregnant widow. Derided, beaten and driven from the town as if he were heading to Calvary, he must recuperate and recalibrate before kidnapping his new enemy’s gal “Susan” (Gay Erin) and then returning for his pounds of flesh - and woe betide anyone who gets in his way, including the odious “Davis” (Richard Jordan) who has a bit of a yellow streak and “El Segundo” (Barton Heyman) who works as his boss’s number two, and who also has a well hidden streak of his own - only it is decency. What now ensues is actually, though not graphically, quite brutal as vengeance gets it’s chance to raise it’s ugly and quite creative head at the hands of a character provoked into a ruthlessness that I found quite fitting to watch play out. Jeopardy? Well no, not really, but Jordan is good; Cypher makes for quite a decent baddie and then there is Lancaster who, like a fine port (and Jimmy Stewart) just got better with age in this genre. There’s not much dialogue or romance to clutter up the adventure and this solid, if predicable, feature is an easy watch.