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Ben Vandergroat: They're men, honey, and you ain't. Remember that.
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Ben Vandergroat: Choosin' a way to die? What's the difference? Choosin' a way to live - that's the hard part.
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Ben Vandergroat: Now ain't that the way? A man gets set for trouble head-on and it sneaks up behind him every time!
Roy Anderson: That's life.
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Howard Kemp: You sat up with me?
Lina Patch: Yeah.
Howard Kemp: Why?
Lina Patch: Somebody had to. You was raving so. No one could sleep.
Howard Kemp: Why should you care?
Lina Patch: I don't. I'd done it for a dog if he was sufferin'.
Howard Kemp: Thank you.
Lina Patch: You're welcome.
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Jesse Tate: [Betrayed by Ben] I deserve it. Do business with the Devil and you get it every time.
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Ben Vandergroat: Here you are. Breakfast in bed.
Howard Kemp: What's this?
Jesse Tate: You better eat it *before* we tell you.
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Description
"Plain arithmetic. Money splits better two ways instead of three," smooth-talking outlaw Ben Vandergroat reasons to his captors, three bounty hunters thrown together by chance. They're taking him to justice in Abilene, but Ben has other ideas. If he can set the men against each other ? play on their greed, their fears, their vanities ? he may be able to make his break to freedom.
In the third of his five landmark Anthony Mann-directed westerns, James Stewart stars as the relentless leader of bounty hunters caught in the snare of the hunted (Robert Ryan). Tough, sweating with tension, and towering as tall as its breathtaking Colorado Rockies setting, The Naked Spur is simply "one of the best Westerns ever made" (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide).
Year: 1953
Director: Anthony Mann
Starring: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell
Running Time: 91 min.
Format: DVD MOVIE
Amazon.com
The Anthony Mann-Jimmy Stewart Westerns in the 1950s infused the genre with a psychological intensity and psychopathic edge. The brutal The Naked Spur, their third collaboration, is generally considered their best work together and one of the finest Westerns ever made. Stewart is a hard, angry bounty hunter tracking outlaw Robert Ryan in this lean five-character drama set in a deceptively beautiful mountain wilderness. Stewart finds himself saddled with two unwanted partners, sourdough prospector Millard Mitchell (his sidekick in the earlier Mann Western Winchester '73) and dishonorably discharged cavalry officer Ralph Meeker. Ryan's tomboyish sidekick Janet Leigh becomes increasingly torn between duty to her desperate guardian and her growing attraction to Stewart. The rugged landscape of jutting peaks, narrow passes, and torrential rivers is as gorgeous as it is dangerous: a well-protected plateau becomes a sniper's perch, an old mine turns from protective cave to dangerous cave-in. Stewart delivers the most ruthless performance of his career as a man haunted by betrayal, unwilling to trust and unable to love. Ryan's jovial banter and charm masks a cold-blooded savagery (he once remarked that it's his favorite performance). The tension stretches to the breaking point in this taut battle of wits, which culminates in a standoff next to the white water of a raging river, where Mann brilliantly uses the jagged landscape as a deadly battleground--nature itself becomes an enemy. --Sean Axmaker
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