Product Details

• Actors: Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Ben Johnson, Joe Don Baker
• Directors: Sam Peckinpah
• Writers: Jeb Rosebrook
• Producers: Joe Wizan, Mickey Borofsky
• Format: Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Anchor Bay
• VHS Release Date: May 12, 1998
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304953739
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,528 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Junior Bonner is director Sam Peckinpah's lovely, elegiac look at the world of the rodeo--and his only film with nary a bullet wound. Steve McQueen, engagingly easygoing but determined, is the title character, a rodeo rider out to win a big bull-riding contest in his hometown. Even as he confronts his dwindling days on the circuit, he also must deal with his feuding parents, marvelously played by Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. Preston is particularly good as the randy old con artist; he and Lupino strike real sparks. Peckinpah's slow-motion camera is put to particularly good use filming the balletic violence of the rodeo, at once more terrifying and awe-inspiring than any gun battle. A lovely country-western valentine to a dying breed. --Marshall Fine

Amazon.com

One of director Sam Peckinpah's lesser-known and little-seen outings, this is actually one of his most interesting for being so relaxed. Yet it deals with the themes that always interested him: the man who has watched the world pass him by and realizes that his time is gone. In this case, it's rodeo rider Junior Bonner (Steve McQueen), who returns home to try to win top prize in the bull-riding competition to raise money to stake his father (Robert Preston) to a future. As easy-going and good-natured as you'd like, with a delicious chemistry between Preston and a feisty Ida Lupino as Junior's estranged parents, who are still able to strike romantic sparks. Great rodeo footage captures both the violence and beauty of the sport. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still workin' on 8 seconds......, November 16, 2002

By 

Chris K. Wilson "Chris Kent" (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Junior Bonner (DVD)

As a big fan of film director Sam Peckinpah and actor Steve McQueen, I always thought I had seen their most substantial work. Much to my surprise, I viewed the 1972 film "Junior Bonner" for the first time recently and was stunned by its quality and depth. "Junior Bonner" is a terrific film, complete with Peckinpah's individualistic themes, McQueen's understated though electric presence, magnificient location detail, boozy saloons and elder statesmen (and women) coming to terms with a rapidly receding past.

A genre unto itself, the rodeo lifestyle was documented with surprising fervor in the early 1970s by a handful of interesting films including "Honkers," "J.W. Coop," and "When the Legends Die." Each film explored the themes of a changing civilization which embraced convention while muting individualism and personal freedom. Thus, Peckinpah and McQueen were truly in their element with "Junior Bonner."

The film covers a day in the life of Junior Bonner (McQueen), an aging rodeo star who returns to his Arizona hometown to participate in an annual rodeo competition. We are soon introduced to his family, including his estranged parents (Robert Preston and Ida Lupino) and his budding businessman brother (Joe Don Baker) looking to profit from the sale of his father's land while exploiting the frontier/cowboy persona.

"Junior Bonner" is so understated, that the viewer must read between the lines throughout its brief running time, including a fascinating dinner scene with McQueen, Lupino and Baker when they discuss the family's future. It is a moment of brilliant directing and acting.

Ironically, what is probably the least seen film of Peckinpah and McQueen's careers is also one of their best. Peckinpah has never before been so restrained, if not gentle. Known for his fierce action sequences in such films as "The Wild Bunch" and "The Getaway," Peckinpah utilizes his detailed, frenzied style during the exciting rodeo sequences. But his handling of the more intimate moments, especially those between Preston and Lupino, are some of his most gentle scenes he ever put on film. In many ways, Preston's character is just a scruffy version of Peckinpah himself - a deeply flawed but eventually loveable dreamer. It is Peckinpah opening up to the viewer for one of the few times in his career.

McQueen, likewise, plays a character very close to him as a man. The role of Junior Bonner is that of a gregarious loner, limping from the hard knocks of life, trying to quietly go about his business but discovering he can do anything but. His accent, his mannerisms and his reactions to everyday life always ring with a note of truth. It's absolutely one of his finest performances.

Perhaps the film's only fault is the rather abrupt ending which seems to come out of nowhere. It's unconventional, but then again, so were Peckinpah and McQueen. Unheralded, and relatively unknown, "Junior Bonner" is a great film ripe for discovery. Quiet, unassuming and good natured, "Junior Bonner" is a perfect display of two legendary motion picture talents (Peckinpah, McQueen) exploring themes perhaps closer to their hearts than any film they ever made.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Peckinpah lightens up . . ., September 5, 2004

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Junior Bonner [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is one of those movies that starts out "under the influence" of the 1970s, with kinetic split-screen images during the credits, showing in slow motion a disastrous ride on a bull, intercut with shots of McQueen driving a mud-spattered and beat up white Cadillac convertible, towing a horse trailer, altogether the picture of a man down on his luck. Then we get a vision of an American West exhausted and resold as suburban housing developments of so-called rancheros (never mind that "ranchero" once referred in the Southwest to the owner of a ranch) by young women in cowboy hats and hot pants. And Steve McQueen's rodeo cowboy, Jr. Bonner, returns to the home place outside Prescott, Arizona, to find heavy equipment operators fiercely tearing up the earth and anything that gets in their way. Standing there in his tight Lee jeans, western shirt and straw cowboy hat, surveying a land laid waste, he's the picture of a promising future that has seriously run aground somewhere.

But director Peckinpah lightens up after this downbeat start, and the movie becomes a kind of romantic comedy, with old-timer Robert Preston rising from his hospital bed with a dream of prospecting in Australia and a last attempt to win back his wife of many years, played wonderfully by Ida Lupino. There is plenty of farce, including Preston and McQueen riding a horse through backyards and getting hung up on a clothesline, a comical barroom brawl, a punch that sends a man through a front porch window, and the rodeo itself with a rapid montage of graceless falls from rough stock played against turkey-in-the-straw music.

McQueen, playing an ageing, stove-up bull rider, is the calm at the center of this storm. While Preston clowns, Lupino frowns, Joe Don Baker fumes, and Ben Johnson grins and cracks jokes, McQueen reflects a quiet reserve that connects him with a long line of western heroes holding true to the cowboy code of generosity, individualism, and toughing it out when the going gets rough. He gets the girl, but not for long, because true to form, he has to get on down the road. Much of the footage in the film seems to be from an actual rodeo, but rodeo fans should be forewarned. It's not a serious attempt to portray the sport with much accuracy.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blows away stereotypes of both McQueen and Peckinpah, June 14, 2005

By 

A C SHIELDS (melbourne , australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Junior Bonner (DVD)

I was looking forward to seeing this film because of Steve , having just seen him in 'The Getaway' , also directed by Sam Peckinpah . The two films could not be more different .

In Junior Bonner the actors , atmosphere , characters , cinematography and script are all top notch . For those who think of Bullitt when they think of Steve and the Wild Bunch when they think of Sam Peckinpah , this film is something very special and a wonderful surprise - like discovering buried treasure . It's that good .

A bargain price DVD , in no way reflecting the film's high quality .