The Naked Spur
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Movie Reviews of The Naked Spur
Movie Review: "Choosing a way to die? What's the difference? Choosing a way to live? That's the hard part."
Summary: 5 Stars
The Naked Spur was one of the very first spec scripts to get picked up by a major studio, and it's easy to see why. With a strong story, a small but vividly drawn cast and a lot of post-war cynicism, Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom's Oscar-nominated screenplay has the feel of one of the film noirs MGM chief Dore Schary was so fond of to it, albeit set in Anthony Mann's beloved high country. James Stewart's the rancher turned ruthless bounty hunter haunted by his Civil War experiences who finds himself saddled with two unwanted partners in the form of Millard Mitchell's '49er prospector and Ralph Meeker's disgraced cavalryman, the kind of man who'll ask you to trust him while drawing a map on the back of his dishonourable discharge. The reward's not big enough to be split three ways, and their wily captive makes sure they know it, sowing the seeds of doubt and betrayal at every opportunity in the hope that they'll be too busy trying to kill each other to stop him escaping. Rounding out the ensemble is Janet Leigh as his travelling companion who finds herself increasingly caught in the middle and, like Stewart, has to make a choice between salvation and damnation before the journey to the gallows is done.
They're all deeply flawed characters, every one of them lying as much to themselves as to each other, and even the hero looks more likely to take the road to Hell than the one to redemption: their captive may or may not once have been a friend, but now he's just a sack of money that's worth just as much dead as alive. As with many of their Westerns, Stewart carries his own physical stigmata with him - in The Man From Laramie a shot through the hand, in Bend of the River the scar of a hangman's noose and in this a bullet in the leg - as he travels his own mental Calvary, kicking and screaming against his own redemption every tormented step of the way as only an Anthony Mann Western hero can. He's more than a match for the elements as the weather and landscape reflects the growing intensity of the drama, until he takes on a raging torrent and wrestles a river for a corpse with more pure hatred and desperation in his eyes than any sane man should ever have. And when redemption comes, it's quiet, almost begrudging and unsensationalized, and all the more effective for that.
If that sounds too perfect, there's a catch, and in this case, unexpectedly it's Robert Ryan, whose performance as the jovial puppeteering wanted man just doesn't work. For once he lacks real menace and it's hard to see anyone being taken in by him he's so laughably insincere. Along with the hokey use of Beautiful Dreamer on the soundtrack it's the film's only misjudgement. More than half a century on, this is still gripping and intense stuff.
Sadly, Warners' DVD is problematic. The color may be better than the TV prints, but the definition is often variable, with pin-sharp shots sometimes alternating with ones that are far softer now than they were in 1953. Extras are the original theatrical trailer, Tex Avery cartoon Little Johnny Jet and Pete Smith Speciality short Things We Can Do Without.
Movie Review: "The Naked Spur (1953) ... Anthony Mann ... MGM (2006)"
Summary: 5 Stars
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) presents "THE NAKED SPUR" (1953) (91 min/Color) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Howard Kemp (James Stewart) is a taciturn frontiersman who loses his home while he's off fighting the Civil War --- To raise enough money for a new grubstake, Stewart becomes a bounty hunter in Colorado territory --- His first quarry is fugitive, killer Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) --- Kemp's efforts to bring in Vandergroat and collect the reward are compromised by the presence of Vandergroat's loyal girl friend Lina Patch (Janet Leigh) and Kemps's two disreputable sidekicks, wily prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell) and disgraced Union-officer Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker).
There's plenty of "cat and mouse" byplay between Kemp and Vandergroat before the brutal climax; the drama is intensified by the fact that both men are on the outer rim of total insanity.
The powerhouse combination of star James Stewart and director Anthony Mann scoring another cinematic bullseye!
The Oscar-nominated screenplay for "The Naked Spur" was co written by Sam Rolfe, who was later one of the creative forces responsible for the similarly no-nonsense TV western series "Have Gun, Will Travel".
Under the production staff of:
Anthony Mann [Director]
Sam Rolfe [Screenwriter]
Harold Jack Bloom [Screenwriter]
William H. Wright [Producer]
Bronislau Kaper [Original Film Music]
William C. Mellor [Cinematographer]
George White [Film Editor]
BIOS:
1. Anthony Mann [aka: Emil Anton Bundesmann] - [Director]
Date of Birth: 30 June 1906 - San Diego, California
Date of Death: 29 April 1967 - Berlin, Germany
2. James Stewart
Date of Birth: 20 May 1908 - Indiana, Pennsylvania
Date of Death: 2 July 1997 - Los Angeles, California
3. Robert Ryan
Date of Birth: 11 November 1909 - Chicago, Illinois
Date of Death: 11 July 1973 - New York City, New York
4. Janet Leigh [aka: Jeanette Helen Morrison]
Date of Birth: 6 July 1927 - Merced, California
Date of Death: 3 October 2004 - Beverly Hills, California
5. Ralph Meeker
Date of Birth: 21 November 1920 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
Date of Death: 5 August 1988 - Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California
6. Millard Mitchell
Date of Birth: 14 August 1903 - Havana, Cuba
Date of Death: 13 October 1953 - Santa Monica, California
the cast includes:
James Stewart - Howard Kemp
Janet Leigh - Lina Patch
Robert Ryan - Ben Vandergroat
Ralph Meeker - Roy Anderson
Millard Mitchell - Jesse Tate
Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]
Total Time: 91 min on DVD ~ Warner Home Video ~ (08/15/2006)
Movie Review: Complex adult Western that ranks among the very best of the genre.
Summary: 5 Stars
The third film in the collaborations of director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart may also be the best of the bunch.
This dark morality tale is about how conflicted loner Stewart is after killer Robert Ryan for a cash reward to restart his life. Along the way he is given unwanted assistance by two strangers(Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell) and Ryan's girl, beautiful Janet Leigh.
What ensues is a tale of betrayal and greed, lust and disaster and alot of soul searching for Stewart, who's world weary man must discover a method to the madness, a point to existence.
Stewart is superb in the lead role, conveying a sense of darkness and emotion that Mann was best to bring out. His tortured role is highly relateable and tragic. The conclusion of this film features one of Stewart's most heartbreaking and believable cinematic moments as his character transforms his belief that drove him for the previous ninety minutes in about ninety seconds.
Ryan serves as the anchor to the picture, a devil's advocate that turns the other men against each other bringing about there worst feelings of greed and disception. His character's usually cheerful attitude makes his violence and language that much more disturbing. It's a brilliant performance.
The rest of the cast are entirely believable with Mitchell as a likeable enough old Indian trader with a dream of hitting it big with a gold strike. Meeker is a former Army officer who proves a back stabbing, licentious creep. Leigh is typically warm and likeable, as well as being strong and independent. It's one of her best roles from thais early part of her career.
Mann's use of cinematography is most effective creating a true sense of clausterphobia even among the mighty peaks and valleys of the Rocky Mountains. It may be my fvaorite shot of the Mann westerns for the locatiosn themselves become there own character, imposing and foreboding.
The DVD features typical Warner Bros extras including two short subjects and a Theatrical Trailer. The extras are pleasant, but am I surprised that no one did commentary on this classic. A mini-documentary would have been welcome as well.
If your a Western film buff, consider this one a must own. It's one of the top twenty five of the genre's history and essential cinema.
Movie Review: A delightful adventure where the outlaw uses his wit
Summary: 5 Stars
This film's title refers to its final scene where James Stewart climbs a mountain cliff, believe it or not, by pushing his spur into the cliff and hanging on to it while trying to recapture Robert Ryan.
Stewart is looking for Ryan who shot a man in the back. There is a $5,000 reward. This is the first time that Stewart is bounty-hunting, but he needs the money to buy back the ranch that his fiancée sold under him while he was fighting in the Civil War. Stewart meets a poor prospector, who prospected for decades without finding anything, and a dishonorably discharged army lieutenant, who had seduced the daughter of an Indian chief. The two help him and insist upon sharing the $5,000 reward.
They capture Ryan, who has Janet Leigh with him. She is the daughter of a dead gunfighter. She left her home after her mother's death to see her father and found that he was dead. She joined Ryan because she had nowhere else to go. Ryan is an affable, sneaky, lying, conniving, and smiling charmer. He tells Leigh that she needs to help him escape from the three men so that they can ride to California together and start a new life - which is a lie, but she believes him. Ryan uses his wit during the more than week-long trip to Abilene to drive wedges between his three captors, and to find a way to seduce at least one of the three to help him escape.
During the trip, the Indian chief and a dozen or so braves catches up with the lieutenant, there is a battle, and Stewart is wounded in the leg. While in a delirium, he tells how his fiancée cheated him of his ranch, and how he needs to buy it back from the man she sold it to, for ranching is his life and his delight. Leigh acts as if she feels sorry for him, she tells him that she is not romantically involved with Ryan, and Stewart, a lonely man, asks her to marry him.
I won't reveal what happens next. Was she leading him on, as Ryan requested her to do? Will Ryan be able to seduce one of the three to help him escape? Will all three take Ryan to Abilene or will one or two of them get killed? Will Ryan hang? Will Stewart buy back his ranch? Will he marry Leigh and live happily ever after, or will he join her and go to California?
Movie Review: DRAMATIC WESTERN OF A BYGONE ERA
Summary: 5 Stars
A group of people thrown together by circumstance of a $5000.00 reward poster for a back-shooting murder that earlier had taken place in Abilene, Kansas.
Jimmy Stewart heads an all star cast in this 3rd meeting and picture of Stewart and Anthony Mann. Seldom on the screen has there been paired such good as personified by Janet Leigh juxtaposed with such evil as Robert Ryan. Ralph Meeker, disgraced-discharged soldier, and Millard Mitchell, burnt out miner-prospector, throw in with Stewart to shepherd the killer to his future hanging.
But the trio must first not only overcome the wild, mountainous country, but Indian attack, and the rain and mud to come. The eventual raging rivers combined with all this lends abundant psychological stress and interplay to these diverse, mostly greedy, personalities. They begin to mistrust everyone else and everything to a point of each becomming murderous.
The salient feature here is the continous manner in which Robert Ryan is able to promote dissension among Stewart, Meeker, and Mitchell. This 1953 movie allows Robert Ryan an opportunity to provide one of the best performances of his long and varied career. Just excellant, almost beyond description.
Though this classic movie only times out at 93 minutes, the psychological and physical action never lets up for a moment. Each time I view this movie I'm drawn in anew as if I'd never seen it before. The evil present in Ryan's character continues to unfold until not only Janet Leigh becomes aware of it, but we as viewers see it as never before, too.
As the film winds down the raging river and rapids only serve as cinematic background to reinforce the dialogue and plot. But above all we see the insane evil present in Robert Ryan, an evil which would not only destroy him but anyone foolish enough to trust him. But as is self evident, such degree of evil generally serves as the mechanism leading to its own destruction.
Overlooking the improbable ending of this film, the fact remains that THE NAKED SPUR is a great cinematic effort from half-century back. Don't miss it.
Semper Fi.