Hombre is a 1967 Western film directed by Martin Ritt, based on the 1961 novel by Elmore Leonard.
Paul Newman stars as the eponymous hombre, a half-white, half-Apache man who at some point was adopted by a white man and got the name John Russell. Russell has been living with the Apache for some years as one of them, but he gets some news from his friend Mendez (Martin Balsam): Mr. Russell has died and John has inherited his boarding house in town. At Mendez's urging John cuts his hair and dresses more "white" and goes into town to look over his boarding house. Jessie, the attractive redhead who has been running the boarding house, tries to talk Russell into keeping it open, but Russell refuses, saying he'll sell the place.
So Jessie, seeing nothing for her in this dusty desert town anymore, gets a ticket on the stage out. The stage line has actually been put out of business by the railroad, but a Mr. and Mrs. Favor (Fredric March and Barbara Rush), the local Indian agent and his wife, have chartered a stage because they are in a hurry to get to Bisbee and attend to business. Also on the stage are John Russell himself, Mendez who is driving the stage, Billy Lee and his wife Doris who are unhappily married, and Cicero Grimes, a local thug who intimidates and threatens another passenger into surrendering his ticket.
Some of those people have secrets. One secret is revealed when some bandits waylay the coach, and it turns out that Cicero only went on the coach to rob it.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: How did Lamar, Cicero, and the other bandits know that Mr. Favor is a crook who has been embezzling the money meant to provide for the local Indian reservation? The movie does not explain, but in the novel, it's revealed that Lamar once worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in buying and transporting beef to the reservation, which is how he knows that Mr. Favor has been skimming a lot of money that is meant to provide for the Apache. (As a result they are starving.)
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Doris, who seems bored with her good guy husband Billy, approaches tough guy Cicero and makes a pass at him, saying "I like to see a man who acts like a man." When Cicero grabs at her chest and then throws her down on the ground, however, the spell is broken.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Russell gives Billy a rifle and tells him that when the Mexican bandito comes out of cover (to kill Russell), Billy is to shoot the bandito In the Back. When Billy says "In the back?", Russell says "I'll ask him to turn around first."
- Briefcase Full of Money: The bandits break open Mr. Favor's briefcase and are pleased to discover that it has $12,000 in cash inside.
- Brownface: Newman and Balsam with their skin darkened to play a half-Apache and a Mexican, respectively.
- Call-Back: The bandits have tied up Mrs. Favor outside and left her to die in the heat and sun. When Jessie attacks Russell for not doing something to save her, Russell reminds her of how Mrs. Favor once sneered at the local Apache for eating dog, and how the Apaches have been reduced to eating dog in the first place because Mrs. Favor's husband stole the money that was meant for them.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Lamar and the other racist cowboy who harass the Apaches at the bar, and Frank, the town sheriff and Jessie's lover who is bitter about being stuck in a two-bit desert town. They turn out to be part of Cicero's gang, and they show up to rob the stagecoach.
- Dead Sparks: Seemingly the fate of Mr. and Mrs. Favor's marriage. Mrs. Favor, in a random conversation with the other women in the party, says how tired she is of her husband's spindly legs and varicose veins and says that she gave the best years of her life to him, before ruefully remembering how theirs was once a Teacher/Student Romance and he used to read Robert Browning to her.
- Dirty Coward: Mr. Favor responds to his wife’s screams for help by cowering in terror and refusing to do anything to save her. What’s worse is that it’s his fault she was in that predicament.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: The bandito cocks the hammer of his gun and spins the barrel as Russell is coming down the steps for the big showdown.
- The Hero Dies: Russell dies in the gunfight to save Mrs. Favor.
- Honor Before Reason: When Mrs. Favor is left out as bait for the money exchange, the group is aware that whoever goes out to make the exchange will probably die. When it comes down to it, only Jessie volunteers to make the exchange. However, this is overruled by Russell who goes out instead, and does in fact die.
- Hypocrite: Jessie overrides Russell and insists on telling Mr. Favor, who has just come up to the abandoned mine dying of thirst, that they left water in the mineshaft. After Mr. Favor drinks from the goatskin and comes up to the others, he looks Russell in the eye and says "White people stick together." This is only a couple of scenes after Mr. Favor grabbed a gun and tried to steal all the water and abandon the rest of the party to die in the desert.
- The Ken Burns Effect: The last shot of the film, before the credits roll, is a zoom out from what appears to be a part-white child in an Indian camp.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Doris is attracted to big, tough Cicero, and lets her hair down as a flirtation tactic when striking up a conversation with him.
- Mutual Kill: Billy can't kill the bandito because Mrs. Favor, slowly ascending the steps after she's been left in the broiling sun all day, is blocking his shot. So the bandito shoots and kills Russell, but at the same time Russell shoots and kills him as well.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Most of the story does not happen if John Russell's father doesn't die and leave his boarding house to his adopted son.
- Politically Incorrect Villain:
- The two cowboys at the bar who harass and insult two Apache, until Russell smashes one of them in the face with his rifle and chases them out.
- Mr. Favor, the weaselly asshole who demands that Russell ride on top of the coach after finding out that Russell is half-Apache.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Russell says to Lamar, "Maybe if we're all thirsty we'll go to Delgado's and get some mescal," before he shoots Lamar. This is a reference to the scene early in the movie where Lamar the racist cowboy was harassing two Apache for drinking mescal, before Russell smashed a whiskey glass into Lamar's face.
- Stealing from the Till: Mr. Favor, the Indian agent, has been embezzling from the funds he is supposed to be using to feed the Apache at the reservation. The reason he was so determined to charter a stage out of town is that he has stolen some $12,000 in late 19th-century money, and is trying to get away.
- Thirsty Desert: The road to Bisbee goes through desert country, which is important to the plot, like when Lamar shoots one of the goatskins full of water, or when Mr. Favor tries to steal what little water the group has.
- Title Drop: Mendez greets Russell as "hombre!" when they meet for the first time in the film. Later, the Mexican bandito who doesn't know Russell's name calls him "hombre" repeatedly.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The green shirt-wearing outlaw vanishes just prior to the final confrontation. He isn't there to be gunned down with the other baddies, nor is he shown fleeing ahead of time.
- Whole-Plot Reference: This movie was based on an Elmore Leonard novel, so maybe it was Leonard who cribbed from the plot of Stagecoach. Stagecoach is about the occupants of a coach traveling cross-country, a bunch of strangers including a taciturn outsider (the older film has John Wayne as an escaped convict), the woman of loose morals who is attracted to him (in Stagecoach she's a prostitute), another younger woman, and a man who turns out to be on the coach because he is on the run after Stealing from the Till. The main difference between the films is that in Stagecoach the coach is attacked by Indians while in this film the coach is attacked by bandits and a half-Apache is the protagonist.
- The Wild West: Towards the end of the "wild west" period, it seems. Most of the Native Americans are on reservations, although some are apparently free, and the railroad is putting local stagecoach routes out of business. But it's wild enough still that bandits can roam around and ambush and rob a stagecoach.
