The Naked Spur (1953, dir. Anthony Mann, US) by Patrick McElroy
When modern audiences think of the western genre from the golden age, they normally conjure up images of righteous heroes, with a simple black and white morality of good guys versus bad guys. What they don’t realize is what a generalization that is, and that there was a time after WWII and the Korean War, that the genre explored the conflict within our culture, and the despair of men who faced atrocity.
While John Ford explored that some in the late 40s, it was Anthony Mann who dwelled in the darkness. Coming from film noir, Mann would make westerns with the same form of brutality and internal conflict in his characters.
His go to actor was the heroic everyman James Stewart, who also experienced the tragedy of war and channeled that rage through the anti-heroes of Mann’s films.
Their first collaboration was Winchester 73 (1950), then Bend of the River (1952), then came what I consider their finest effort: The Naked Spur, which turns 70 this year. With the progression of each film, you see a further descent into madness from the characters Stewart portrayed, and in The Naked Spur you see him at his most violent.
The film is set in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 1868, where Stewart plays bounty hunter Howard Kemp, who’s after a $5,000 reward for capturing Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), who’s wanted for killing a sheriff. He’s joined by an old prospector Jesse (Millard Mitchell), and Yankee veteran Roy (Ralph Meeker), both of whom he’s agreed to give a share of the fortune.
They soon capture Ben, who happens to be companioned by Lina (Janet Leigh), who like Howard carries past wounds. The rest of the film follows these five characters as we see a violent obsession grow in Howard, as he becomes the most frightening character in the movie.
What’s fascinating about this character is like many men coming back from the two previous wars, he doesn’t know how to heal himself and confront his wounds. One of the best scenes in the film that wasn’t explored in many films from that era is a scene where Howard experiences PTSD.
The film also explores toxic masculinity and the different forms of it in all four of the male characters, along with how men try to control women. In a few scenes Roy aggressively hits on Lina who’s surprisingly a strong woman, and she fires back at him. This is one of the earlier examples of sexual harassment on screen, as Roy is also condemned for it.
As far as being a stylist, Mann doesn’t get enough praise. He does some impressive swish pans throughout, and beautifully captures the blue skies, and the green land, blocking the actors meticulously in every shot. Seeing the westerns that Stewart did with Mann, it was shocking for audiences to see the lighthearted actor of the depression era behave so brutishly. Without these films Hitchcock never would have used him the way he did in Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958).
One of the great challenges of being an actor is being able to reinvent your image, and few actors did it more successfully than James Stewart. The Naked Spur would be an example of an actor and a director coming together to express certain ideas, and feelings, to mold them into something profound. Without their westerns, John Ford might not have returned to the genre in 1956 with The Searchers, and explore the level of darkness he’d never shown before, so Anthony Mann is the person to thank.
Patrick McElroy is a movie writer and movie lover based in Los Angeles. Check out his other writing at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick