The Naked Spur
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Movie Reviews of The Naked Spur
Movie Review: A must-see for the fans of Westerns movies...
Summary: 5 Stars
While "Bend of the River" rhymes the tale of pioneers seeking home in a mountain wilderness with ex-outlaw Stewart's desperate efforts to escape his past, "The Naked Spur" (with two Academy Award Nominations for Best Story and Screenplay) deals with all characters motivated by greed with Stewart's bounty hunter portrayed as no less violent and neurotic than his murderous victim... Stewart gives a performance so intense and taut as to border, in the words of one critic, on the hysterical...
Geographical odyssey reflects the hero's spiritual struggles with panoramic and outstanding views of the Rockies at their best... Beautifully photographed in Technicolor, the film tells the story of a forceful and aggressive Stewart, once a landowner cheated out of his property, who has taken the bounty hunting as the quickest way to regain a measure of respectability...
Stewart is hot on the trail of a wild killer (Robert Ryan) who has a $5000 reward on his head, dead or alive... Once captured, the obscure wily outlaw turns the bounty hunters against each other, and almost escapes...
Janet Leigh is cast as "a fancy-talking" jealous type, and apparently, Stewart finds his renewed decency thanks to our heroine... In a widely admired scene, Stewart breaks down and weeps, finally understanding the inhumanity of his bounty-hunting obsession, and is set free for his preoccupation with the fastened body as a merely rewarded property...
Meeker challenges Stewart in his tense, hostile projections, and Ryan is in his element as the crooked hunted killer...
With a short hair and hardly a make-up, Janet Leigh plays the tough, spirited, uneducated pretty companion of a murderer... She does her best to control the energies of four men, who include a discharged cavalryman with dishonor and a selfishly greedy guide (Millard Mitchell).
Mann-Stewart third movie is a visually an absorbing celebration of violent deeds, a big Western regarded as one of the best ever made, a must-see for the fans of Westerns movies...
Movie Review: Technicolor supreme
Summary: 5 Stars
The tagline for this movie at IMDB says "Packed with Technicolor Thrills!" - and this is exactly the case. After seeing a few Technicolor movies produced in the early 50's (notably - "Picnic" by William Holden) I'm inclined to view Technicolor as much more than just a color film process, it's rather a state of mind.
Everything is hyper about Technicolor films in general and "The Naked Spur" in particular, starting with the color - and all the way up to human wickedness and charged sexuality. No production code is ever violated in "The Naked Spur", but it's so suggestive and powerful in its sexual undertones that even the wonderful Colorado landscapes add to this sexual appeal.
"The Naked Spur" was produced long before anybody heard about PC, so the woman's role in this film is totally secondary and submissive. Even the happy end scene where Lina agrees to become Kemp's wife is very much a show of woman's transferring her allegiance to a powerful winning male. At the very end Kemp generously decides to spare Lina's sensibilities and not to take Ben's body to the authorities to claim bounty, but this happens already after Lina accepted his proposal.
There are four male characters in the movie, and all of them're wicked to various degrees. Kemp, who's supposed to be a "good guy", does not really become one until well into the movie, and even at the very end he does not look spotless from the moral viewpoint. All others are plain bad, and the authors make no excuses, blaming human nature, which takes the first opportunity to follow greedy impulses to commit any crime.
"The Naked Spur" is much more than a western, it's a psychological drama. Excellent script, superb performance by all cast, very professional camera work, beautiful scenery - the movie is a pleasure to watch.
Movie Review: The Best of The Mann/Stewart Westerns
Summary: 5 Stars
James Stewart was a different man after he returned from World War II. Although still capable of playing the lovable, folksy character he played in comedies, his films upon his return from the war sometimes took a hard, even bitter edge. And the majority of these films were the Westerns he made in the 1950s with great director Anthony Mann. Making eight films in all, including non-Westerns such as The Glenn Miller Story and Strategic Air Command, they formed one of the strongest bodies of work between a director and actor in Hollywood history.
Beginning in 1950 with "Winchester '73", Stewart and Mann made Westerns that belied many of the typical genre films of that era. Stewart's heroes, instead of being stalwart, upright and likable, were often times somewhat shady, sinister, and not always likable. Of all of their great Westerns, including "Winchester '73," "The Man From Laramie," "Bend of The River," and others, probably the best film of their collaboration was "The Naked Spur," a story about a vicious, psychopathic outlaw captured by a group competing with each other to collect the bounty on the outlaw's head. The outlaw, played by relish and glee by Robert Ryan, uses the group's collective and individual greed against them in a bid to escape.
Stewart's performance is spectacular, ranging wildly from bitter to sympathetic, nervous to resolute, and the rest of the cast is also dynamic and evenly matched. This film was was well worth the wait for DVD, and should be purchased by all Stewart-lovers, Western-lovers, and Ryan-lovers, and perhaps one day, there will be many more Mann-lovers, because he was one of Hollywood's best directors, and he is largely forgotten today.
Movie Review: Definitely the best of the Mann Westerns
Summary: 5 Stars
Yea, it's great that most of the other ones are out on DVD, but this really is the best of the Mann/Stewart westerns and deserves a Criterion-quality release. "Man of the West" is also a great film, although a shade too self-conscious and abstract for my taste. "The Naked Spur", on the other hand, is perfect - I've had the privilege of seeing it a couple of times at the Pacific Film Archive here in Berkeley. The last sequence, which involves crossing a raging river on a rope, is incredible. And as good as Stewart and Ralph Meeker are, Robert Ryan (as usual) steals the picture. (See Mann's "Men at War", Fuller's "House of Bamboo", Ray's "On Dangerous Ground", and countless other classics.) He is simply the most underrated actor in American films.Movie Review: The Naked Spur
Summary: 5 Stars
Filmed in Technicolor in the gorgeously rugged Rocky Mountains, Anthony Mann's gritty, thrilling Western hinges on the hidden motives of its five protagonists, each of whom is running from a sordid past. In a none-too-wholesome role, Stewart is brilliant as a bitter war veteran whose fiancee abandoned him while he was away at the front--and made off with the title to his ranch. Mitchell's no-luck miner and Meeker's unsavory, no-account soldier vie with Kemp as Ryan, cackling like a jackal, sets all parties against each other while plotting his escape. The radiant Leigh rounds out the cast playing Lina, a misguided gal longing for a new life in California who falls for Stewart. "Spur" is a tough, bristling horse drama by noir director Anthony Mann.