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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Choosing a way to die? What's the difference? Choosing a way to live? That's the hard part." , 20 Nov 2006
The Naked Spur was one of the very first spec scripts to get picked up by a major studio, and it's easy to see why. With a strong story, a small but vividly drawn cast and a lot of post-war cynicism, Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom's Oscar-nominated screenplay has the feel of one of the film noirs MGM chief Dore Schary was so fond of to it, albeit set in Anthony Mann's beloved high country. James Stewart's the rancher turned ruthless bounty hunter haunted by his Civil War experiences who finds himself saddled with two unwanted partners in the form of Millard Mitchell's '49er prospector and Ralph Meeker's disgraced cavalryman, the kind of man who'll ask you to trust him while drawing a map on the back of his dishonourable discharge. The reward's not big enough to be split three ways, and their wily captive makes sure they know it, sowing the seeds of doubt and betrayal at every opportunity in the hope that they'll be too busy trying to kill each other to stop him escaping. Rounding out the ensemble is Janet Leigh as his travelling companion who finds herself increasingly caught in the middle and, like Stewart, has to make a choice between salvation and damnation before the journey to the gallows is done.
They're all deeply flawed characters, every one of them lying as much to themselves as to each other, and even the hero looks more likely to take the road to Hell than the one to redemption: their captive may or may not once have been a friend, but now he's just a sack of money that's worth just as much dead as alive. As with many of their Westerns, Stewart carries his own physical stigmata with him - in The Man From Laramie a shot through the hand, in Bend of the River the scar of a hangman's noose and in this a bullet in the leg - as he travels his own mental Calvary, kicking and screaming against his own redemption every tormented step of the way as only an Anthony Mann Western hero can. He's more than a match for the elements as the weather and landscape reflects the growing intensity of the drama, until he takes on a raging torrent and wrestles a river for a corpse with more pure hatred and desperation in his eyes than any sane man should ever have. And when redemption comes, it's quiet, almost begrudging and unsensationalized, and all the more effective for that.
If that sounds too perfect, there's a catch, and in this case, unexpectedly it's Robert Ryan, whose performance as the jovial puppeteering wanted man just doesn't work. For once he lacks real menace and it's hard to see anyone being taken in by him he's so laughably insincere. Along with the hokey use of Beautiful Dreamer on the soundtrack it's the film's only misjudgement. More than half a century on, this is still gripping and intense stuff.
Sadly, Warners' DVD is problematic. The color may be better than the TV prints, but the definition is often variable, with pin-sharp shots sometimes alternating with ones that are far softer now than they were in 1953. Extras are the original theatrical trailer, Tex Avery cartoon Little Johnny Jet and Pete Smith Speciality short Things We Can Do Without.
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