La lance brisée

This is a western starring Spencer Tracy as the patriarch rancher Matt Devereaux who has four sons. The three sons from Spencer's first marriage are Ben (Richard Widmark), Mike (Hugh O'Brian) and Denny (Earl Holliman). When his first wife dies, Matt marries Katy Jurado, a Native American. They have a twenty five year marriage including Matt's youngest son, Joe (Robert Wagner).

The three older sons are a disappointment to Matt, and the eldest, Ben, hates his father and youngest brother. Matt rules his ranch with a iron fist, and he uses a whip with authority. Many cattle on the ranch have died because the creek water was poisoned by a copper mine. As a result, Matt rides out to the mine with all four of his sons, and together they destroy the mining equipment, injuring some of the miners in the process.

The law comes down hard on Matt for this, and somebody will have to serve jail time. Joe knows that his father would die in prison, so he serves the three year prison term. Ben refuses to go on principle, and Mike and Denny are just plain sniveling weaklings. Joe is released, and there are still problems on the home front. Ben is angry and defiant saying he worked sixteen hours a day since he was ten years old, and Matt suffers a stroke after a nasty fight with him. As a result of his incapacity, Matt signs over a piece of the ranch to each of his sons, and you know that share and share alike is just going to cause more trouble among this incongruent group.

Did I mention there is oil on the land? Who will sell out, and how will this all work out? Watch and find out. Spencer is excellent as Matt Devereaux, and his scenes with Richard Widmark are especially well done. Their arguments as father and eldest son are convincing.

This was the first film Spencer did after leaving MGM and the film is available free to AMAZON PRIME members. I'm bumping this from a 7 to a 6 because for those famililar with Fox classic films you'll probably recognize the plot as a loose western remake of a well known 40s Fox noir. That tended to reduce the suspense for me quite a bit.

Pride, resentment, jealousy, and prejudice boil over in this complex grown-up western, featuring hard boiled performances by Spencer Tracy, as a tightly-wound cattle baron, and Richard Widmark as his hate-filled eldest son. Contrasting them are Robert Wagner and Katy Jurado as Tracy's virtuous (and favorite) youngest son and loyal Indian wife.

Right on target from start to finish, Broken Lance manages to squeeze three hours worth of epic drama into a lean ninety-six minutes. There's enough material here to have made a TV-miniseries.

As good as it was, in the end there were still a few unanswered questions. Did Wagner regain his birthright? How did he deal with his other two brothers and the governor? The film should have been fifteen minutes longer!

Tracy is a believable cowboy, nicely balanced for handling a bull whip, riding dangerously the hills...

Tracy plays a despot, absolute ruler cattle baron "making the wrong move with the wrong people," using his force to restrain the pollution of his cattle's stream: "The river is on my land. You are on my land. You close this operation down."

His first three sons (Widmark, O'Brien and Holliman) were unanimously disappointing to him... He considered them cattle thieves, treating them harshly, without mercy... Only the fourth son and the youngest one (Robert Wagner) by his present wife, a Comanche woman played by the clever, quick-witted Katy Jurado has his affection and care... The other sons looks only forward to his demise so they may take control over his cattle empire...

Tracy — irritated and frustrated as a father — expends excessive reasons that arouses the sensation of hate provoking avaricious rebellion, and nearly destroys his younger kid Joe...

It was interesting to follow Dmytryk's study of racial prejudice against the Indian wife of a domineering white father... Interesting to compare the rough resilience of Tracy with his character—isolated by mortal danger in "Bad Day at Black Rock," a character enlightened with real feelings specially in guessing the conclusion... Somehow this is missing in Dmytryk's "Broken Lance" where the autocratic father seems so artificial, an unfavorable comment that can be aimed against the movie itself...

Widmark offers a fine performance as the unlikable eldest son, while Robert Wagner and Jean Peters manage the romantic interlude...

The screenplay, based on 1949s "Home of Strangers" wins an Oscar and the fiery-eyed Mexican star Katy Jurado was nominated for best supporting actress...

Filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor and with great sceneries of the state of Arizona, "Broken Lance" remains a first-rate adult Western...

Saw Broken Lance last nite on Encore Western. It's my second viewing. I really enjoyed Spencer Tracy and Kathy Jurado. Tracy is worth the price of admission and Jurado's sad eyes never fail to draw me in. To those who say it's a play on Joseph & his Brothers, I'm sorry I don't agree. Beyond the superficial similarities, Jacob's sons wouldn't have dreamed of disobeying him, let alone harming him the way the Deveraux boys (Widmark, Holliman, O'Brian) do.

The film has what I believe to be the best film courtroom sequences ever, i.e. the cross-examination of Matt Deveraux.

Definitely worth seeing.

Although a remake,this western strongly recalls the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis.After all,that's the hero's name ,and his brothers really sell him when they refuse to give more money to the bosses of the copper mine .Leonard Maltin wrote that it owes a deal to "king lear" too,the daughters becoming sons.Richard Widmark is the stand-out and easily outshines the "good" Robert Wagner and his two other brothers who are no more than walk-ons anyway.In his final confrontation with Tracy,he even surpasses the veteran :he succeeds,which is not a small feat, in making us believe that he had a very hard life and that he's not so bad after all.

"Broken lance" ranks among Dmytryk's best works ,more human than "Warlock" and a thousand times better than the latter days ' fiascoes such as "Alvarez Kelly" and the dreadful "Shalako".Released just after the brilliant "Caine mutiny" ,it compares favorably to it,in its own way.The opening is intriguing :we do believe ,for a short while,that Joe (Wagner) is the black sheep of the family ,and then , a long flashback -a device which is rarely used in westerns - brilliantly starting with the patriarch's(Tracy)painting in a deserted house ,tells the whole story.Also unusual is the rather long trial ,a reason for which some will classify the movie as talky,which is unfair,because so many qualities in a western are rare to find.Tracy's death is a real tour de force verging on supernatural.There's also a sensitive wistful performance by Katy Jurado ,as Tracy's second wife .