Junior Bonner

How much you enjoy the film overall depends on your interest or affection for the rodeo but there are some really fine performances. McQueen is excellent, a bruised thoughtful performance, but Robert Preston and Ida Lupino really take acting honors as his parents. The scene between them on the stairs is an example of what great actors can do to make characters live on the screen. Something that helps sell the story is that the two of them really look like they could be Steve's parents. Junior's a rambler who is happy to go his own way but finds the modern world getting in the way. A subtle drama of the kind that is rarely made today.

Sam Peckinpah is usually stereotyped as a director who is mainly concerned with violence and confrontation. This is only part of the picture. If you look past the violence of 'The Wild Bunch' you'll see a movie concerned with old age, loyalty and changing values. 'Straw Dogs' deals with masculinity and ethics. 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia' contains a vivid picture of traditional Mexican culture confronted with modern America's greed and corruption. These sub-texts and themes are often overlooked because of the blood and gore.

'Junior Bonner' leaves out the gore, and what happens? Peckinpah detractors who criticise the aforementioned movies ignore it and dismiss it as "slow" and "boring"! It is anything but. 'Junior Bonner' is a thoughtful character study of an aging rodeo performer (Steve McQueen at his best) and his relationship with his estranged family (veterans Ida Lupino and Robert Preston and character actor legend Joe Don Baker - all first rate). It moves at its own pace, which will alienate the MTV-generation, but anyone with a love of good movies will be fascinated. 'Junior Bonner' may not be as widely discussed as Peckinpah's more controversial efforts, but it's just as good in its own way, and shows once again, that he was one of THE greats of American cinema. Don't overlook this one!

There are many actors who are willing to go that extra mile to convince you the character which they are playing is genuine. Junior 'Jr' Bonner Steve McQueen is such a man. Playing him with the stoic silence as a 8 second ride on the back of a Brahma bull and with the explosive outcome of the trill, McQueen is a simple but aging rodeo star with little to say except when it comes to what is important to him. One aspect is his father Ace Bonner (Robert Preston) whom he deeply respects and quietly emulates. Ida Lupino plays Elvira Bonner, his mother and Joe Don Baker, his ambitious older brother out to become rich. Even though his brother wants him to quit the rodeo and come to work for him, Jr seeks to remain his own man. A noted old timer to Bonner's ambitions is Ben Johnson who plays Buck Roan, the owner of the dynamite animal called "Sunshine", a huge bull which really challenges Bonner. The movie is a superb vehicle for McQueen who is unquestioningly suited for the part. The story does him well and could easily have been his real trade. Excellent film. ****

I first heard of this film on a trip to Prescott for the 1973 rodeo. Three days of hard liquor, sex and wild livestock (I had sat out Woodstock in an NYC jail and had to make do) Of course the film was all the buzz but the highlight of '73 was an ill-advised visit by a chapter of Hell's Angels who didn't know the locals carried side arms. They had a most humiliating exit. The former territorial capitol, a moribund Prescott sat between the exhausted gold fields in the mountains and the ranches suffering from poor beef prices out on the high prairie. The Palace Bar was the queen of a raucous grouping of saloons on Whiskey Row. A place to rub elbows with crazed prospectors and working cowboys. The town's only nod to modernity was a Western Auto Parts store and Sears Catalog outlet...I don't think they had a McDonalds.

Today the faceless crowd savors its victory. The ranchers cried "uncle" and gave in to the developers or joined them. Whiskey Row in name only the bars have become boutiques and the Palace is a salad bar. The city groans in gridlock under the traffic of her sprawling suburbs. Street widening has obliterated the familiar or bypassed now inaccessable charms. Strip malls and the usual fast food joints line the approaches for miles and miles. A flood of California retirees have raised the costs and codes to push Jo Don Baker's trailers to rural ghettos ranging thirty and forty miles out. Phoenicians have taken the old gold camps for summer homes and condos. The once unbroken mountain views and sweep of prairie are dappled blurs of asphalt shingle, stucco and neon. A straggling herd of antelope (a protected species) are under edict of removal in one housing developement and if Junior Bonner comes back to town he better be driving an Escalade.

The film is a poignant story proven true. I haven't the heart to revisit the rodeo.

'Junior Bonner' was made in 1972 and set in a then contemporary Arizona; but in many ways, it is a true western. The real subject of most westerns was not cowboys and injuns, but the passing of an era; and in this film, about a star rodeo rider, this is typified by the contrast between his father (a man for whom the skills of the ring were also the stuff of everyday life) and his (prescient) brother Curly, hustling for his first million by selling real estate to easterners with no feel for the land. Director Sam Peckinpah is best known for excessive movies like 'The Wild Bunch', but here he plays a surprisingly restrained hand, and the film has a low key, believable feel. As often, Steve MacQueen (who plays the eponymous hero) doesn't really appear to be acting, but simply fits into his role. One thing that's interesting is how far away, to a modern audience, the world portrayed seems, now that the Curlys of this world have transformed the western states into America's fastest growing suburbs; and certain incidental details particularly bring this home: Junior enjoying a relaxing beer while driving, or even the fact that the leading character is called J.R. and his mother Ellie (dating the film to an era before 'Dallas'). In fact, as westerns go, this one is unusually subtle and unromantic; but now seems as historical as any drama set on the frontiers of a hundred years before.