Based upon a book by Elmore Leonard, Valdez Is Coming stars Burt Lancaster as Bob Valdez, a Mexican constable who is tricked into killing an African American by a rich rancher named Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher) and then takes his revenge. 

Tanner accuses the man of murder, and his hired gun, R.L. Davis (Richard Jordan) has been shooting his hovel up for quite a while before Valdez shows up. There is a great moment when the accused man’s Native American wife walks out of the hovel and over to a creek to fetch some water. Davis keeps shooting at her (intentionally missing; he just wants to watch her squeal), but she fetches the water with absolute calm.

Valdez figures he might be able to talk the man out instead of killing him. And he’s just about able to. He explains the man will have a better chance if he tells his side of the story instead of shooting it out with those men. As the man begins to agree, he leaves the door open, and Davis shoots at him. The man (and I’m sorry, I don’t think the film actually gives him a name, and I can’t figure out who played him) thinks it’s a setup and starts shooting at Valdez, who then shoots back, killing the man.

Once Tanner takes a look at the dead man, he realizes he wasn’t the murderer but shrugs it off as if it were no big deal.  Valdez figures they owe the man’s woman an apology and perhaps a little money for the mistake.  When he asks Tanner for $100, he’s laughed at and shooed away. When Valdez insists Tanner get his men to tie Valdez to a wooden cross and drive him into the desert.

He eventually gets himself free and finds his way home. Then he loads up with ammo and finds one of Tanner’s men and tells him to issue the titular warning:

“Valdez is Coming.”

And come he does. He sneaks into Tanner’s complex, kills some of his men, and then kidnaps Tanner’s woman, Gay Erin (Susan Clark.) The kidnapping is sort of accidental. It wasn’t part of the plan, but when Valdez gets into a bit of a jam, he grabs Gay Erin and runs.

I think this is supposed to show that Valdez isn’t the type of guy who usually kidnaps women, but that in these particular circumstances he had no choice. It helps that Gay Erin doesn’t actually like Tanner all that much. A sort of romance eventually develops between Valdez and Gay Erin, though the film is smart enough to not let it fully develop.

All of this is the type of thing we’ve seen before. There are plenty of films where a seemingly unsubstantial man gets pushed too far, and it turns out he’s an old badass after all. Valdez Is Coming doesn’t do anything particularly new with this, but it does what it does fairly well. If you can forgive Lancaster for playing a Mexican, his performance is actually quite moving.

I’m a big fan of Elmore Leonard’s crime novels, though I’ve never read any of his westerns. I have a copy of this one and have read the first few pages a couple of times, but it has never grabbed me, and I get distracted. The film has definitely made me want to go back to it. They say the film changes quite a bit and that the book is better (isn’t it always?)

The film is pretty good, so maybe that means the book is great.  Time will tell.