The Naked Spur (no 38)

by Allan Fish

(USA 1953 92m) DVD1

Beautiful Dreamer

p  William H.Wright  d  Anthony Mann  w  Sam Rolfe, Harold Jack Bloom  ph  William C.Mellor  ed  George White  m  Bronislau Kaper  art  Cedric Gibbons, Malcolm Brown

James Stewart (Howard Kemp), Janet Leigh (Lina Patch), Robert Ryan (Ben Vandergroat), Millard Mitchell (Jesse Tate), Ralph Meeker (Roy Anderson),

I first saw The Naked Spur back in 1997.  It was shown as a tribute to James Stewart a few days after he died and was introduced, in his own idiosyncratic style, by Mark Cousins.  He called Stewart “funny, tender and uncomplicated“, but went on to wax lyrical about how Spur was representative of a shadier aspect of Stewart’s on-screen persona, and certainly his series of westerns with Anthony Mann showed that the days of George Bailey and Elwood P.Dowd were behind him. 

            Cut forward seven years and I come to review the film for this work.  This time, it’s the last of the film’s stars, Janet Leigh, who has just passed away.  Indeed, Millard Mitchell had died less than a year after the film’s release.  A sense of doom seems to hang over the film, and yet somehow it seems appropriate, for Spur, like the other Mann classics (and Winchester 73 and The Man from Laramie would be chosen by as many critics as Spur), dwells in the dark places of the mind. 

            Howard Kemp was a rancher in Kansas whose beloved cheated on him and conned him out of his land.  Desperate for cash he sets after outlaw Ben Vandergroot, but loses the trail in Colorado.  He accepts the help of elderly wannabe prospector Jesse Tate and dishonourably discharged cavalry officer Roy Anderson, who brings his own problems, courtesy of a group of Indians after him for dishonouring a chief’s daughter.  More problematic still is that Ben travels with Lina, the feisty daughter of an old friend, who stirs the desires of all the men present.

            What marks Mann’s classic as so impressive is its spare use of its resources.  It doesn’t go out for breathtaking panoramas in the style of John Ford, and indeed was shot in much greener locations.  He further manages to make his tale hypnotic despite resting on merely five central characters.  It’s almost like a morality play set in the real outdoors; the darkness of the souls of these men of greed contrasting with the sun-baked rocks and raging rivers of Colorado.  None of these men are trustworthy, but we are drawn to care about their predicament deeply.  Ryan is a charismatic, deceptive villain, with eminently quotable lines (“a man gets set for trouble head on and it sneaks up behind him every time” he smiles when Meeker catches him unawares).  Stewart, meanwhile, just wants the money.  “I’m taking him back and I’m doing it alone” he snarls, like the bitter, soulless man he has become.  It’s Leigh’s Lina who brings him back into the light, a notion summed up in the simplest of gestures, as when he covers her up in her blanket when he thinks her asleep. 

            Spur‘s script rightly drew praise and an Oscar nod (rare indeed, for an essentially low budget western), and the location photography, though slightly tarnished by time, is impressive.  And though some may find the use of the tagline theme during Stewart and Leigh’s more tender moments a little sentimental, it’s true to the demands of the genre.  But perhaps the main reason it works so well is the excellence of the performances.  Meeker showed the first glimpses of talent here and the too-soon-lost Mitchell is as memorable a sidekick for Stewart as he had been in Winchester 73.  Better still is Ryan as Vandergroot, one of his trademark villains, but with a touch more humour than usual.  As for Leigh, she moved away from peaches and creamdom with this role, somehow suiting the cropped hair and still looking lovely without the MGM make up layer (though Ryan’s continual requests for a back massage with “can you do me?” have rather different connotations today).  More than anything, however, this is a testament to the trust between Stewart and his director, with both at their very best.  Stewart even seems to have a nervous breakdown on screen in the classic finale.  Best summed up as Cousins said on that sad day in 1997, Spur is “a tribute to the darker side of a great big man.”