James Stewart plays Howard Kemp, an embittered man who returned home from the Civil War to discover that “his girl” had sold his ranch and used the money to run off with another man.
So he turns bounty hunter to make the money needed to buy back that ranch. Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) is the man he’s after. He shot a sheriff back in Kansas and he’s worth $5,000.
Of course, Kemp just might have to split the reward with an old prospector named Jesse Tate, who helps him track down the outlaw, and a former cavalryman named Roy Anderson, who helps capture Vandergroat.
The other complication is a pretty young girl named Lina Patch (Janet Leigh), who’s been traveling with the outlaw since her father was left dead in the dirt following a bank robbery.
She dreams of a new life with Ben in California and is convinced he didn’t commit the murder he’s been accused of.
From the minute he’s captured, Ben begins conniving, looking for a way to escape.
And Lina is willing to do almost anything to help him in that endeavor.
James Stewart as Howard Kemp, a bounty man who reluctantly takes on two partners in The Naked Spur (1953)
Robert Ryan as Ben Vandergoat, busy thinking up a way out of his predicament in The Naked Spur (1953)
Review:
Using a cast of five and the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, Anthony Mann and company produce a minor classic, a film far better than many Westerns with much larger casts and big action scenes.
Stewart is absolutely desperate to get his man and so earn a fresh start on his beloved farm back home. Tate has been mining — and failing to strike it rich — for years. Anderson has been dishonorably discharged and has Indians on his trail for his dalliance with a chief’s daughter.
And Ryan is marvelous as the conniving outlaw determined to get at each man’s weakness. He starts by making sure the miner and the solider know about the $5,000 on his head. He encourages Lina to play up to both of the younger men.
His strategy is simple, he tells her. Buy time. Because the longer the journey back to civilization takes, the more that can happen along the way.
This marked one of only two Westerns for Janet Leigh, who would get famously slashed to death seven years later in Alfred Hitchock’s “Psycho.” She also starred in the 1966 Spaghetti “Kid Rodelo.”
Janet Leigh as LIna Patch, the young girl Ben has taken under his wing after the death of her father in The Naked Spur (1953)
Millard Mitchell as Jesse Tate, the old-timer who agrees to try to find a fresh trail for Howard Kemp to follow for $20 in The Naked Spur (1953)
Directed by:
Anthony Mann
Cast:
James Stewart … Howard Kemp
Janet Leigh … Lina Patch
Robert Ryan … Ben Vandergroat
Ralph Meeker … Roy Anderson
Millard Mitchell … Jesse Tate
Runtime: 91 min.
Ralph Meeker as Roy Anderson, getting a glimpse of the wanted poster Howard Kemp has been carrying with him in The Naked Spur (1953)
James Stewart as Howard Kemp, determined to hold onto his bounty at any cost in The Naked Spur (1953)
Memorable lines:
Roy Anderson, as Kemp reads his dishonorable discharge papers: “The Army never did understand me.”
Ben Vandergoat, upon his capture by Howard Kemp: “Now, ain’t that the way? Man gets set for trouble head-on and it sneaks up behind him. Every time.”
Lina Patch, arguing on behalf of Ben Vandergoat: “It wasn’t Ben who killed that man.”
Howard Kemp: “It’s him they’re paying the reward on.”
Ben Vandergoat: “Choosin’ the way to die? What’s the difference? Choosin’ the way to live, that’s the hard part.”
Ralph Meeker as Roy Anderson, dishonorably discharged from the cavalry and on the run from an angry Blackfoot chief in The Naked Spur (1953)
Millard Mitchell as Jesse Tate, about to make a deal with the ‘devil’ in hopes of learning the location of a gold mine in The Naked Spur (1953)
Lina, when Ben Vandergoat insists on another back massage: “I wonder if you really need this or if you just like to be rubbed.”
Ben: “Same thing. A man needs what he likes.”
Ben Vandergoat to Lina, about a man he’s gunned down: “He ain’t ever gonna be hungry again. Never want anything he can’t have. That’s more than we can say.”
Howard Kemp to Ben Vandergoat, who keeps calling his Howie: “Stop talkin’ like we were friends. Maybe we sat down at the same card game once or twice, but that don’t mean dirt to me now.”
Lina when Howard asks her to visit his ranch after he turns in Ben and buys it back with the reward money: “It’d be like steppin’ on a grave.”
Janet Leigh as Lina Patch, giving Ben (Robert Ryan) one of his frequent back rubs in The Naked Spur (1953)
James Stewart as Howard Kemp, on the trail of a $5,000 bounty to buy back a ranch he lost in The Naked Spur (1953)
Ben Vandergoat, under Kemp’s gun after an escape attempt fails: “If you’re going to murder me, Howie, don’t try to make it look like something else.”
Jesse: “Do business with the devil and you’ll get it. Every time.”
Roy Anderson, as Howard pulls a rope from around Ben’s neck before an attempted river crossing: “Why? It’s no different from the rope in Abilene. You knew you were going to bring him back to die when you started after him. You know that now. That hasn’t changed. He’s not a man; he’s a sack of money. That’s why we’re all here, especially you. Why don’t you face up to it?”
Janet Leigh as Lina Patch, warming up to Howard Kemp at Ben Vandergoat’s request in The Naked Spur (1953)
Robert Ryan as Ben Vandergoat, sensing a chance to escape and sharing his excitement with Lina in The Naked Spur (1953)
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There are striking parallels between The Naked Spur and Deliverance (1972), which is one of my 10 favorite films of all time. And what links them is a turbulent, coursing river. Both films are entirely rural and are situated preponderently in a steep river gorge. The protagonists and antagonists are effectively trapped between a dangerous river and the high walls of the gorge that surround them. There is thus a certain geological compression verging on claustrophobia that weighs upon the dramatis personae. This goes a fortiori for TNS insofar as the party of bounty hunters, outlaw and moll, at one point seek shelter from a storm in a cramped, dank cave.
In Deliverance, danger comes from on high in the form of a psychotic hillbilly with his rifle. In TNS is stems from an outlaw who triggers landslides in the hope of crushing his pursuers. In Deliverance, John Voight scales the gorge to find and kill the hillbilly. In TNS, Jimmy Stewart and Ralph Meeker do the same to apprehend the outlaw (Robert Ryan). In both films we also see corpses in the river enmeshed in ropes. And finally, the cinematographic verisimilitude is unmistakable. Both films feature dramatic shots from the top of the gorge down upon the raging river below. The terrible power and grandeur of the untamed rivers is strikingly displayed. There is no doubt in my mind that Deliverance cinematogrpher Vilmos Zsigmond was heavily influenced by William C. Mellor’s work in TNS.
Additionally, there is a thematic resemblance between TNS and some of the Ranown Westerns. Specifically, we see a bounty hunter escorting a dangerous outlaw to a site of justice only to be beset by hangers-on seeking a chunk–or all–of the reward, and the entire scenario being complicated by a beautiful young woman. In this case, the lovely girl and source of jealous friction is Janet Leigh, who was 25 at the age of filming. She was far prettier here with her scruffy, short, curly hair and in the flower of her youth than she would be later on as a glamor queen in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
This is an interesting and very good Western. Robert Ryan is surely one of the more repellent villains in the whole Western corpus and it is most satisfying to see him get his comeuppance at the hands of Stewart and Meeker. But perhaps more than the fine ensemble of Stewart, Meeker, Ryan, Leigh and Millard Mitchell, it is the minatory river-gorge setting that steals the show.