Joe Kidd - Wikipedia

Eastwood was given the script by Jennings Lang, written by novelist Elmore Leonard. Originally called The Sinola Courthouse Raid,[3] it was about a character inspired by Reies Tijerina, an ardent supporter of Robert F. Kennedy, known for storming a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico in an incident in June 1967, taking hostages and demanding that the Hispanic people have their ancestral lands returned to them. Leonard depicted Tijerina in his story, a man he named Luis Chama, as an egomaniac, a role that went to John Saxon. Robert Duvall was cast as Frank Harlan, a ruthless landowner who hires Eastwood's character, a former frontier guide named Joe Kidd, to track down the culprits and scare them away. Don Stroud, who had appeared alongside Eastwood in Coogan's Bluff, was cast as another sour villain who encounters Joe Kidd.

Directed by John Sturges, who had previously helmed such westerns as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Hour of the Gun (1967), filming began in Old Tucson in November 1971,[3] overlapping with another film production, John Huston's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, which was just wrapping up shooting.[4] Outdoor sequences to the film were shot near Bishop, California, southeast of Yosemite National Park.[4] The actors were initially uncertain about the strength of the three main characters in the film and how the hero Joe Kidd would come across.[5] According to writer Leonard, the initial slow development between the three was probably because the cast was so initially awestruck by having Sturges direct that they surrendered authority to him.[5] Eastwood was not in perfect health during the film, suffering from symptoms that suggested a bronchial infection, in addition to having several panic attacks, falsely reported in the media as his having an allergy to horses.[6] During production, the script for the finale was altered when producer Robert Daley jokingly said that a train should crash through the barroom in the climax, and he was taken seriously by cast and crew, who thought it was a great idea.[4]

It was one of several movies where Saxon played a Mexican.[7]