The Naked Spur (1953)
The Naked Spur is Mann's third collaboration with James Stewart, and probably his weakest. It's worth watching mainly for some gorgeous Technicolor scenery and an excellent turn by Stewart; other elements - plot and supporting characters in particular - are lacking.
Bounty hunter Howie Kemp (James Stewart) tracks outlaw Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) and his gal pal Lina (Janet Leigh) all the way from Abilene, Kansas to Colorado Territory. He enlists the reluctant help of prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell) and Army deserter Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker) to bring Ben in, neglecting to mention the $5,000 reward on Ben's head. Ben exploits the tension between Howie and his colleagues, trying to turn them against each other to affect his escape. Things are complicated when a group of Indians arrive looking for Roy, and Lina starts to fall for Howie.
The Naked Spur has a fairly simple story, with only five speaking parts, that is jammed with action and conflict. It crams a lot into 91 minutes, including a shootout with Indians, a romance, Howie's inner torment and the interplay of his four colleagues. Not all of it works, however. Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom's script lacks the marvellous economy of Winchester '73 (1950), and aside from Howie the characters remain rote archetypes, making their conflicts less than interesting. The movie succeeds when focusing on the tormented and bitter Howie, but the pseudo-happy ending somehow seems wrong.
As to be expected, Mann's photographic eye is on-target. Using William Mellor's gorgeous Technicolor photography, he films beautiful yet foreboding Rocky Mountain landscapes, making the Mountains a character in their own right. (It's fudged a bit, however, by a sadly-deficient DVD.) The Indian attack scene is by-the-numbers, but the climactic shootout among the rapids is expertly staged. The movie contains trademark touches of Mann violence; Howie gets shot in the leg and rope-burned, and during the final showdown, Ben gets a spur jabbed in his face. Bronislau Kaper contributes a good but not exceptional score.
James Stewart plays the most negative character of his career, with the possible exception of Vertigo. His Mann protagonists were always edgy, violent and neurotic, but Howie is close to a full-blown psychopath: obsessive in his pursuit of Ben, greedy, and unfailingly rude towards his "partners." The movie gives him a motivation (he lost his wife and farm during the Civil War) but he remains violent and mostly unlikeable until the ending. Stewart pulls off this difficult role wonderfully, and it's definitely among his best performances.
The rest of the cast doesn't fare so well. Groggy favorite Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch) is good but a bit hammy; he's so obviously a sleaze that it's hard to see why Howie's colleagues fall for his BS. He comes off badly compared to Glenn Ford's similar but much more subdued villain in 3:10 to Yuma (1957). Janet Leigh's (Psycho) change of heart towards Stewart seems rushed and unconvincing. Millard Mitchell (Winchester '73) and Ralph Meeker (The Dirty Dozen) are one-note stock characters.
The Tin Star (1957)
The Tin Star is a horse of a different color. It's a remarkably conventional, even generic Western, made all the more remarkable that such an un-conventional director as Mann would direct it. Mann deserves credit for making such cliched material as enjoyable as it is.
Bounty hunter Morg Hickman (Henry Fonda) rides into a small town hoping to collect the reward on an outlaw. He finds that the Sheriff has been murdered, and the Sheriff's son Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins) is minding the store. Morg reluctantly takes Ben under his wing, teaching him the tricks of the trade, all the while falling for a local widow (Betsy Palmer) and her "half-breed" son Kip (Michel Ray). Things come to a head when the beloved Doctor McCord (John McIntire) is murdered by two outlaw brothers (Lee Van Cleef and Peter Baldwin), and local bully Bogardis (Neville Brand) leads a posse to lynch them. Ben must take the outlaws in alive, and face Bogardis in a final showdown.
Every Western cliche imaginable is present here: the tenderfoot Sheriff learning the trade; the embittered gunslinger looking for a home; the kindly widow and kid who need a father; the mean, racist bad guy. This sounds like a script for Gunsmoke, not Anthony Mann, but Mann and screenwriter Dudley Nichols play the cliches for all they're worth. The movie is endearing for all its earnestness, and the talent behind and in front of the camera makes it all work.
Mann takes elements from previous films and neuters them. The tormented characters of Mann's usual films are replaced by formula archetypes. Far from Stewart's neurotic Howie Kemp, Fonda's Morg Hickman is a nice guy, bitter though he is. Bogardis is like a playground bully, who only needs someone to stand up to him. The movie makes a big deal about the town's racism towards Kip and other Indians, the only unconventional element of a thoroughly square oater.
Mann delivers another visually-striking film. The movie is fairly limited in scope, but Loyal Grigg's black-and-white photography is no less striking. Nichols' script is fairly schematic, but Mann gets some nice scenes out of it, particularly the lengthy siege of the outlaw brothers. Elmer Bernstein delivers a fine, rather restrained score.
Henry Fonda plays Morg as a typical Henry Fonda character: tough but wise. Fonda could play this role in his sleep, but to his credit, he makes the character likeable and compelling. Anthony Perkins fairs less well; he's mostly stiff until the finale. Betsy Palmer is sweet if unremarkable. Neville Brand makes a fine bad guy, and John McIntire is excellent in an uncharacteristically-likeable role. Lee Van Cleef (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) turns up as a second-tier bad guy. Kip is played by Michel Ray, a talented child actor who would play Farraj in Lawrence of Arabia before starting a very successful business career.
PS: Check out this awesome Westerns blog, Decisions at Sundown, if you get the chance.
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