Junior Bonner

Sam Peckinpah is best-remembered for the bloody mayhem of The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs, which isn't entirely fair. Peckinpah was equally capable of low-key, thoughtful films. Ride the High Country has its share of gunplay but the elegiac and somber tone sticks in the memory. The Ballad of Cable Hogue's gentle romantic comedy is the complete opposite of The Wild Bunch's nihilism, even with Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones in supporting roles.

Junior Bonner (1972) is Peckinpah's most down-to-earth film. A small-scale slice-of-life drama, it's far from Peckinpah's best work but still has plenty of modest charms.

Junior Bonner (Steve McQueen) is a master rodeo cowboy who comes home to Prescott, Arizona after sustaining an injury riding Sunshine, a particularly nasty bull. He finds things changing for the worse: his brother Curly (Joe Don Baker) has gone into real estate, planning to sell the Bonner family estate for houses. His dad Ace (Robert Preston) is in the hospital, planning to move to Australia to mine gold, with long-suffering mom Elvira (Ida Lupino) threatening to leave him. Junior looks for a rodeo manager (Ben Johnson) to let him have one more crack at Sunshine.

Junior Bonner plays, fittingly enough, like a modern Western. The decline of the rodeo circuit allows for Peckinpah to indulge his thematic obsessions. Junior is less eloquent than Pike Bishop, angry at the changing world around him but unable to stop it; even his last "blaze of glory" achieves nothing. Peckinpah's themes of selling out are channelled in interesting ways, with Curly selling the family land and Ace looking for new horizons. Peckinpah and writer Jeb Rosebrook eschew the usual cliche of the heroes fighting change. The protagonists know progress is inevitable and are too beaten-down to fight it.

Peckinpah's direction is controlled and focused, allowing Lucien Ballard's photography to capture some beautiful scenery while remaining mostly down-to-earth. "Bloody Sam" incorporates his trademark slo-mo flourishes and rapid-editing style into a few scenes, with mixed results. The rodeo scenes make great use of it, but the bar room brawl mixed with a tender love scene comes off as forced.

Steve McQueen does fine work, dialing down his persona for his quietly desperate protagonist. Robert Preston and Ida Lupino give excellent performances as Junior's weary, beaten-down parents. Joe Don Baker gives a fine performance, miles away from his embarrassing ham in Mitchell and Walking Tall. Bill McKinney (The Parallax View) has a small part, and Peckinpah regulars Ben Johnson and Dub Taylor pop up in supporting roles.

Junior Bonner is a fine little film even if it's not a masterpiece. At the very least, it shows Sam Peckinpah is capable of quiet, small-scale character drama as surely as over-the-top violence.