Customer Reviews

The Naked Spur

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jimmy Stewart's career was doing great in 1950, and hardly needed a boost, but nonetheless, he agreed to appear in Anthony Mann's Western WINCHESTER '73, and the always superb Stewart's career took a new and more complex path. In the 1950s, Stewart would make eight movies with Mann, and five of them--WINCHESTER '73 (1950), BEND OF THE RIVER (1952), THE NAKED SPUR (1953), THE FAR COUNTRY (1954), and THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955)--would be Westerns. These five Westerns fully rival the series of Westerns that John Wayne made with John Ford. They presented the public with a new Jimmy Stewart, one consistently beset with tragedy, often driven to the edge of what human beings can bear. And sometimes, as in THE NAKED SPUR, Stewart would portray a man so driven by the difficulties that life has thrust upon him, that his greatest struggle isn't with his human enemy so much as it is with his highly tenuous grip upon sanity.

Apart from the Native American extras, this film has only five characters: Jimmy Stewart as the bounty hunter seeking a man to collect a reward that will allow him to repurchase the ranch he has lost; Janet Leigh as a young girl who has been taken up by an outlaw; Robert Ryan as the outlaw Stewart is after; Ralph Meeker as a dishonorably discharged cavalry officer; and Millard Mitchell as the old timer whose real dream is finding a mother lode. It is a great cast, and the actors all work together in marvelous fashion. Stewart and Leigh had marvelous careers, but both Ryan and Meeker were great actors who never seemed to manage to have the kinds of careers you would have expected them to have. Meeker would turn in magnificent performances in Stanley Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY (easily one of Kubrick's greatest films) and Robert Aldrich's KISS ME DEADLY, as Mike Hammer, but all in all, he never seemed to get the kinds of roles his talent would seem to require. Nonetheless, he is superb in this film.

There is actually a sixth member of the cast: the San Juan Mountains in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. No director of Westerns was better at integrating the rugged outdoors with his films than Anthony Mann. We all associate, of course, Monument Valley with the Westerns of John Ford, but in Ford's films the incredible landscapes functioned more like decoration. They were backdrops for the stories being told. But in Anthony Mann's films, the land itself was an integral part of the action. That is especially true of THE NAKED SPUR. Both at the beginning and the end of the movie, the hunters seek their prey in a locale higher than they are at. But throughout, the land is palpably a part of the film.

This film also excels at combining psychological complexity with great action sequences. It is a very dynamic movie. Virtually every camera shot catches characters who already in motion. Almost never do we see a cut with a static character who then begins to move. Instead, every cut finds someone already in the act of doing something. Yet, much of the appeal of the film lies in the psychological and emotional tensions between the different characters.

In other words, anyone who loves Jimmy Stewart, great Westerns, or just flat out great cinema, needs to see this film.

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.

Tough and uncompromising, "The Naked Spur" (1953) is a classic Western with James Stewart and director Anthony Mann at the top of their game. Stunningly filmed in the Colorado Rockies, this psychological bounty-hunter odyssey makes the most of Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom's Oscar-nominated screenplay. Excellent performances by Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell prove an ideal match for Stewart's emotional intensity. William C. Mellor's Technicolor cinematography deserves the highest praise. Along with "Winchester '73" (1950), the finest of the Stewart-Mann collaborations.

FIVE, yes count 'em, five characters carry this blistering tale of a bountyhunter (Stewart) who's come to collect the $5000 reward for the capture of a fugitive (Ryan) - dead or alive.

As you would expect, it's not a simple case of picking someone up and bringing them to justice cross-country (on horseback). As luck would have it, bountyhunter 'Howard Kemp' makes crosses paths and makes use of an AWOL cavalry soldier (the always grinning Ralph Meeker) and an old prospector (Millard Mitchell) to capture the wily outlaw 'Ben Vandergroat' (Robert Ryan).

Now Howard (James Stewart) is forced to split the reward three ways, but of course a lot can happen on the journey home. To make matters worse, the captured outlaw goads the others into killing the other two and bringing him in alone. He also sets his young female ward (Janet Leigh) on Howard to steal his heart (and his attention).

If you can only see one Anthony Mann western this one should be high on your list (IMDB rating: 7.4), but if I were you I'd go for more, a lot more! Westerns were Mann's specialty as the ratings seem to attest.

1953: 1 Oscar Nomination: Best Story & Screenplay

A reluctant bounty hunter tries to bring in his crafty quarry with the help of two unwanted partners, a luckless prospector and a cashiered Army officer. The situation is further complicated by the outlaw's young girlfriend. This film is a rare combination of a well-written story, expert direction, beautiful location photography, and excellent performances from a cast of skilled actors. Highly recommended.

I give the film four stars only because of the very soft picture. Otherwise, it would earn a resounding five stars. I have been waiting a long time for this film to be on DVD, but to find that they are insulting Robert Ryan again by providing poor quality DVDs of many of his films now on DVD. Most recent example in Billy Budd, which I also have been waiting to be on DVD for eons. Both The Naked Spur and Billy Budd should have been given first class treatment. Naked is only marginally superious to the VHS due to the soft picture (Mann's other Westerns have been transferred better). MY VHS copy of Billy Budd is superior to the DVD. I definitely won't buy the DVD. Another reviewer mentioned that a few minutes of Billy Budd were deleted in order to fit it on the DVD. I wonder which scenes they were.
As for The Naked Spur, it is another Ryan masterpiece in engendering some degree of audience sympathy for an essentially psychopathic personality. It is amazing how an actor such as Ryan can interpret malevolence so well, yet be a peace activist in real life. When Ryan's Ben Vandergroat cooly murders Jesse Tate, his deep seated cold bloodedness, which has only been talked about up to that point in the film, occurs at the moment when Ben kills Jesse. Ryan's final line to Janet Leigh as he lays in ambush for James Stewart and Ralph Meeker encapsulates his situation:
"Pretty soon Roy and your friend Howie are gonna show up. Then I'll get me some more insurance against dying young."

I remember a few years ago watching on tv this movie for the first time. It is an outstanding western. One of the best westerns I have ever seen. Jimmy Stewart and Janet Liegh are great. I'm a sucker for romantic duos-Stewart and Liegh work very well together. I want very much to see this movie again. It is a movie that can be watched more than once. The movie is a keeper for a DVD collection. Unfortunately, the movie is not available on DVD. I'm waiting anxiously for the movie studio to release Naked Spur on DVD. In the meantime, I can purchase it on VHS. I can't wait to see it again!

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...

If you are an afficianado of westerns then clearly you should see this classic story of greed and remorse with two important actors - James Stewart and Robert Ryan who both play their parts to perfection. Shot in an excellent setting , this film should not be missed.

The Naked Spur was the third of five Westerns director Anthony Mann would make with Jimmy Stewart in the first half of the '50's. These works stand alongside Stewart's 50's films with Hitchcock as going along way to revise his "aw shucks," light comic persona. For Hitchcock, Stewart played obsessive, neurotic characters; for Mann he was that too, with an added capacity for violence that is as convincingly portrayed as is is unexpected. Looking at both ends of Stewart's emotional spectrum by watching The Naked Spur and Vertigo alongside Mr Smith Goes To Washington bears out fully Andrew Sarris' accolade -- Stewart was the most complete actor in classical Hollywood.

In Spur, Stewart plays Howie Kemp, once a normal farmer who probably had a moral compass; but a series of set-backs leading to the the loss of his ranch has left him at the end of his tether -- to get himself out of a financial hole, he has turned bounty hunter, stalking a former friend, a career criminal, who shot a sheriff and now has a substantial reward hanging over his head -- dead or alive.

At the film's start, Stewart is alone in the wilderness, and close to catching his quarry. But by the time he apprehends him, and has to make the long journey back to civilization, he had acquired unwillingly a couple of partners who facilitate the capture and now mean to share in the spoils: Ralph Meeker, as a sociopathic cavalry officer, dishonorably discharged for raping an Indian (and the tribe is on his trail, and hence on Stewart's as well); and a kindly but greedy old prospector (Millard Mitchell).

And the quarry? Robert Ryan, at his menacing best. Bound and immobile for most of the film, his barbed humor and disarming good nature disguise a truly dangerous man -- dangerous because he knows all of his captors weaknesses, and plays them off against each other, using his words as weapons only until he gets the chance to get his hands on an actual gun. When he is caught, he is accompanied by a semi-feral young woman, played by Janet Leigh, the daughter of one of his slain associates with whom Ryan has some sort of ambiguous relationship, somewhere between lover and surrogate father; when Ryan sees Stewart is attracted to her, he will use that too as a weapon.

Mann stages this journey employing the rocky barren landscape as another protagonists; he relishes having his actors climbing sheer rock faces, fording rapids, digging themselves into the earth to shield themselves from bullets. The extremity of the characters struggle with the landscape mirrors the emotional extremes they are subjected to.

Stewart plays here a paranoid, bitter, vindictive man, for whom the pursuit of blood money has become an obsession. The fact that this goal is at odds with the moral person he once was leads him to the edge of hysteria; he screams like a woman, rages, menaces, bullies. And he pulls it off beautifully. Mann once said at the end of any of his films, his heroes are more exhausted then exalted. As in The Wages of Fear, these movies, particularly Spur, are ordeals, and we and the characters are spared nothing. This movie,like the others in the cycle, is among the toughest, and darkest westerns to come out of Hollywood.