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The Naked Spur (1953)

This is a classic straight forward and somewhat clichéd but professional western, with very solid acting and very solid direction, photography, and scenery. That's great, and that's the flaw of it all, this lack or originality. The core of it is action adventure, and an unlikely merging of unsavory characters. At first it's an outlaw that is being sought (Robert Ryan, a youthful bearded Ryan), then it's the Indians who are a danger (and the white gang of good guys and bad guys unite agains this new foe). Heading the posse, if you can call it that, is James Stewart, who is always pretty amazing. And there is the surprise woman in the group, an almost unrecognizable Janet Leigh. Eventually the group has to cross an inhospitable (and beautiful) landscape in all kinds of weather. It's powerful in the themes, if a little familiar in its themes.

Ryan is the highlight here. Stewart is billed first, but he's an uncomplicated hero, and Ryan plays a more convoluted type. The woman is at first Ryan's, it seems, but then it gets complicated. And the other two figures in this roving band take on opposing roles, as well. Leigh, in short hair (a 1950s style, and a good one), is really different, and she does fine. This cast of five is the entire credited cast (the Indians don't count, I guess, with no speaking parts). And because it's a small group, it gets increasingly personal. And good.

Director Anthony Mann is clearly in good form, making a routine script take on both psychological and kinetic edge. Everyone is trapped a bit by a routine script, but Mann makes it really tight and smart. The color photography is also trapped by the routines of beauty in the great Western landscape. The best scenes, at night in a cave, for example, are constricted and tense, really visually wonderful. Sometimes a simple tracking shot will follow someone across bumpy landscape with perfect grace, an invisible cue that the crew is really working hard, laying dolly track, making a difficult scene look easy.

The one really interesting theme that grows slowly until exploding at the end is the morality of hunting someone down just to turn them in for money. The bounty. And the bounty hunter. Well, with Janet Leigh there to help persuade you to higher goals, I supposed Jimmy Stewart can be forgiven. Or praised. You watch and see.

Acting legend Jimmy Stewart and filmmaker Anthony Mann made a handful of notable collaborations, but none quite as impactful as this. It's hailed as one of the finest Westerns ever made by fans and buffs, and this viewer isn't exactly inclined to disagree with them. It's a rather intimate story (there are only five main characters), but it's gorgeously filmed (by cinematographer William C. Mellor) in Technicolor on Rocky Mountain locations in Colorado, and it certainly would have looked even more grand had it been filmed in "scope". Its five characters are developed well, and we see how plain greed often motivates their actions.

Jimmy is cast as Howard Kemp, an intense bounty hunter determined to collect the reward for wanted man Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan). However, he didn't really count on Ben travelling with a companion (the lovely young Janet Leigh), or that he'd have to rely on two other solitary travellers: grizzled gold prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell) and young Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker), who was drummed out of the Cavalry for his shaky morals. Tate, at the very least, comes off as more level-headed than the hot-tempered Anderson.

Without over-explaining things, we learn what motivates Kemp, and we see why he's so driven. A complicated, somewhat compromised character was not exactly known to be Jimmy's forte (he usually played symbols of human decency), but he handles it with style. His co-stars are just as good, though, with Ryan a standout as a smart cookie (this is one of his cheeriest performances, for sure) who knows how to drive a wedge in between the "partners", and otherwise manipulate them.

The good, straightforward story is by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom, who were later nominated for the Screenplay Oscar. In addition to giving us an engaging set of personalities to clash with one another, they also make sure to include some riveting action sequences, well realized by the filmmakers. The final few minutes involve some river rapids, and they're as exciting as anything one will see in this genre.

Well worth seeing for Western devotees, it's also a good time for fans of any of the cast members present.

Eight out of 10.

I never realized what a scene-stealer ROBERT RYAN could be until I saw THE NAKED SPUR. Although JAMES STEWART is the nominal big name star, it's Ryan's charming, snake-like villain who dominates this rugged western despite strong performances from the entire cast. He obviously relishes his role and is a joy to watch.

This is more a character study of a group of desperate losers than your average shoot 'em up western and Anthony Mann has directed it with the focus on the strong clashes between each one of them. RALPH MEEKER does an outstanding job as a war deserter who is both a help and a hindrance to the group as they seek to return outlaw Ryan to Kansas so justice can prevail. Stewart's character is given strong motivation for his deeds but Janet Leigh, as the outlaw's girlfriend, has a role that is not plausibly explained.

Photographed in Colorado's Rocky Mountains, it's a rugged kind of technicolor western that gives all of the performers physically demanding roles--and all of them are more than up to it.

Stewart, Leigh, Mitchell and Meeker are all superb--but it's Robert Ryan's devious villain that will linger longest in the memory.

The Naked Spur is another fine western put together by the team of Director Anthony Mann and player James Stewart. Spectacular location photography in the Rocky Mountains lend a ring of authenticity to the story.

That story being Stewart as a bounty hunter on the trail of outlaw/killer Robert Ryan who has a girl a long with him in the attractive form of Janet Leigh. Getting Ryan proves too much so he has to enlist the aid of prospector Millard Mitchell and army deserter Ralph Meeker.

Getting Ryan and Leigh back to collect the reward makes up the bulk of the film. Ryan is one evil, but very sly rogue as he works to turn the men against each other. His is the best performance in a small cast of seasoned performers each of one is fine in his/her part.

The final shoot out is a really well done climax of the story. Alliances shift and not everyone is among the living when the film is over. In fact the title of the picture gives a hint of how James Stewart uses a spur in a unique manner against Ryan.

For fans of westerns and I think non-western fans will find the drama and interaction among the characters entertaining.

Set in the post Civil War American West, The Naked Spur is more than a western. The director, Anthony Mann, took a script by two relatively unknown screenwriters (later nominated for an Oscar) and made a great picture about losers trying to survive in a tough postwar world. James Stewart, the star, plays a rancher who lost everything because before going off to the Civil War, he signed his ranch over to his girlfriend. In 1952, when this picture was filmed, World War II was no distant memory, the Korean War was going on and the idea that a soldier thought he wasn't going to return from a war was real enough. The writers and Anthony Mann placed the story almost a hundred years earlier, but the movie is about regular people on the skids. The cashiered Army officer, always looking out for number one, whatever the cost to others, had to ring true with war veterans in the audience in 1953. There is a villain, and Robert Ryan plays a great one, but James Stewart's character, Howard Kemp, is no hero. Ryan's character, Ben Vandergroat, complains that he knew Howard and he never did Howie any wrong, so there was no reason for Kemp to track him down, regardless of the reward money. Ryan has a point, a western hero doesn't hunt down someone just for money, knowing that if caught the person will be executed. But the scenic views of the Rocky Mountains, the great production values (including Technicolor) by MGM and the stars all are a façade for what could have been a film noir picture, Anthony Mann's earlier specialty. Stewart's character in The Naked Spur is trying to get back the ranch he lost after his world was turned upside down by war. The screaming nightmares he has, showing the psychological trauma the war was responsible for, would now go under the name post traumatic stress syndrome. War veterans trying to return to a normal life has always been a subject for movies, but rarely has the message been hidden as well as here. The Naked Spur is the type of class picture studios don't (or can't) make anymore, and that is the moviegoers' loss.