NFR Project: 'The Naked Spur' (1953)

 

NFR Project: “The Naked Spur”

Dir: Anthony Mann

Scr: Sam Rolfe, Harold Jack Bloom

Pho: William C. Mellor

Ed: George White

Premiere: Feb. 1, 1953

91 min.

It’s not only one of the great Westerns, it’s flat-out one of the best films made. It also marks the apogee of the collaboration between director Anthony Mann and actor Jimmy Stewart. It’s a tale about greed, vengeance, and the nature of evil.

We are in the (ironically) beautiful and picturesque Rocky Mountains, near Durango, in 1868. Stewart plays Kemp, a bounty hunter determined to capture and bring back badman Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) for the large reward placed on his head. He enlists the help of a prospector, Tate (Millard Mitchell), and an ex-serviceman, Anderson (Ralph Meeker). Kemp’s motivation is disguised at the beginning; we only learn that he is not a lawman and that he is after the reward when Vandergroat, captured, tells the others.

Vandergroat is a role made for actor Robert Ryan, who built a career out of playing movie villains and tough cops. Here he is evil itself, working constantly after being caught to divide his captors, sabotaging their efforts and casting doubt about the others’ ability to share the reward money. He is accompanied by Lina (Janet Leigh), a young girl whose father was friends with Vandergroat. She’s on his side, but finds herself attracted to Stewart’s character.

A group of Native Americans soon confront them on the trail. It turns out that Anderson was discharged from the Army for raping a chief’s daughter. The Indians want him dead. Kemp tells Anderson to ride on and keep the rest out of danger, but Anderson shoots the chief from ambush. A fight breaks out, and all the Indians are killed. Kemp gets a bullet in the leg. There is a rueful moment when Kemp surveys the peaceful forest littered with the bodies of the dead.

Kemp survives his wound, but becomes delirious. It turns out that he signed over his ranch to his sweetheart when he went off to fight in the Civil War; while he was gone, she sold the ranch and ran off with another man. Kemp is determined to buy his ranch back with the reward money. Only problem: if he has to share it with Tate and Anderson, he won’t have enough to cover the purchase. The men fight over Vandergroat. “He’s not a man; he’s a sack of money!” shouts Anderson, who’d just as soon kill him as let him live (the wanted poster says “Dead or Alive”).

Kemp, stiff and wounded, endures more setbacks as he struggles to take Vandergroat to the authorities. He overcomes a nasty fall and a rockfall in a cave. Enraged, he dares Vandergroat to draw on him, but Vandergroat refuses.

Now the group must cross a Spring-flooded, rushing river. Vandergroat convinces Tate that he has knowledge of a gold mine that he will trade to Tate in exchange for his freedom. It’s a trick, and Vandergroat shoots Tate down in cold blood. He leaves his body out in the open so that he can ambush Kemp and Anderson.

I will not reveal the film’s climax; it deserves to be experienced as the director intended. Suffice it to say that Mann makes a statement about the commodification of human life and the emptiness or revenge.

The film is achingly beautiful, shot in the clear Colorado air. Bronislaw Kaper's score is top-notch. The script, by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom, is magnificent. Every line relates to the underlying themes, and the tension between the characters is a constantly shifting nightmare. It is not altogether clear that Vandergroat will be brought to justice. Everyone has pecuniary motivations that muddy their moral statures. This is a post-modern Western that deals in adult themes.

Stewart plays his typical Mann Western character – a man obsessed and in torment, working against his better nature. This darker, rougher side to Stewart’s acting would be epitomized in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Roman Holiday.