THE NAKED SPUR

This was the last remaining of the five Westerns directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart which I hadn’t gotten around to seeing.

It’s an odd picture in that other for some unnamed Native Americans in an early scene there are just five characters.

Stewart plays Howard who has been on the trail from Kansas to bring to justice Ben (played by Robert Ryan) who’s wanted for murder.

Howard manages to capture Ben but only with the help of an old timer Jesse and an ex-army officer, Roy. The former is down on his luck, having been unsuccessful in his attempts to find gold. The latter has recently been discharged for having an 'unstable morality'.

When they learn from Ben that there is a $5000 reward on his head they naturally demand a share which displeases Howard not a little since his only real motivation is the money. As the film progresses we learn that back in the Civil War a woman who Howard was sweet on defrauded him of his land, which he plans to buy back with the reward money.

So the dramatic tension in the film is twofold.  Will Jesse or Roy double-cross the others in order to get the reward money all to themselves?  And when and how will Ben make his inevitable move to escape?

Just to spice things up the group has to include a young woman, Lina, played by Janet Leigh in one of her early roles.  She is not Ben's girl (yet) but has been tagging along with him ever since he has been on the run, for reasons I found confusing.

It bubbles along nicely without ever being that gripping until a climax which leaves Jesse, Roy and Ben all dead.  

By this stage Lina has realised that Howard is an OK guy whilst Ben is a bad 'un.  For some reason that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me she objects to Ben's dead body being taken back to Kansas for the reward, and so she makes Howard choose between her and $5,000.  It's a 1950s Western, and Janet Leigh sure is one attractive woman, so no prizes for guessing what his choice is.

I guess for its time (1953) it has some psychological depth, but all in all it's a bit shallow and lightweight.  It needed Hitchcock in 'Vertigo' to really exploit Stewart's capacity to show hidden depths to his character.

Yet again Stewart's love interest is somewhat age-inappropriate (there's seventeen years between them) and in particular there's a scene in which seemingly out of nowhere Howard grabs Lina and kisses her which makes for uncomfortable viewing.

Jesse is played by Millard Mitchell, who is best known for his performance in 'Singin' In The Rain' from the previous year, but who also appeared in another Mann/Stewart Western 'Winchester '73'.  Sadly he died from lung cancer at the age of fifty, a few months after this film was released.