wge1954
Stewart captures a wanted outlaw,Ryan, and runs across several other despicable, dangerous and untrustworthy people. So what does he do? Of course, he invites them to tag along with him and Ryan and enjoy the great outdoors, camping out, having fun and adventures along the way and just engaging in some good old fashioned fellowship. I mean, who wouldn't want to be in the company of a group of thieves and murderers? So along the way, Jimmy-Boy gets sleepy. So does he tie up Ryan and the others? No, why would he? No, Jimmy, stumbling along, why does Jimmy always incur some type of injury in his films, listens as Ryan tells him he has to sleep sometime, and surprisingly without fail, little Jimmy does and the bad guys take him prisoner. Who could have seen that coming? Feel free to throw up at this point in the movie.Typical, silly, "Duh I'm too stupid to take care of myself", Jimmy Stewart movie. Add in "The Mountain Road", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and the list goes on and you get the picture.
Fuzzy Wuzzy
Tough, sweating with tension, and towering as tall as the breathtaking Colorado Rockies, The Naked Spur is simply one of the best Westerns (of the 1950s) ever made.Set in and around the old west town of Abilene, including its surrounding mountainous region - James Stewart plays Howie Kemp, a no-nonsense, self-styled bounty hunter who, along with his newly acquired partners, Roy and Jess, set out to track down and capture psychotic killer, Ben Vandergroat.Once Vandergroat has been successfully apprehended, he quickly stirs up tensions between his 3 captors, cleverly playing on their fears, and vanity, and their obvious greed for a bigger cut of the $5000 reward that's on his head. It's plain arithmetic - The money splits 2 ways, better than 3.Released in 1953 - The Naked Spur is a very satisfying Cowboy Flick, featuring a superb supporting cast. It was directed by the ever-impressive, Anthony Mann, a dude who certainly knew how to deliver a first-rate "Western".
jason-m-cook
The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann, 1953) The stellar achievement of The Naked Spur is that it has only five speaking roles in it, which is not an easy thing to accomplish for a 90-minute film. Each of these roles is a solid, well-realized character, strong performances by all the actors. Each character has his/her own goals and ambitions, and is acting according to a separate agenda; all of them, for various reasons, are forced to travel together. This is some of the best acting I've ever seen from James Stewart, rivaling his incredible performance in Vertigo. Mann does some truly great directing work, making many of the scenes into edge-of-your-seat suspense (most notably the river sequence toward the end). Two days after watching it, I'm realizing the film was even better than I acknowledged upon that viewing. A gripping Western. 9/10
mformoviesandmore
The scenery is stunning.The storyline is promising.The acting is is of a standard that would have been acceptable in the '50s. By today's standards it is quite corny.I enjoyed the opening. No lead up, it takes us straight in to action and we learn about the characters as the story unfolds.It has silly moments, like when the Indians attack. The Indians can't hit a target and ride around in the open. Each Indian, however, is dispatched with a single shot from the named cast.All in all, a bit of a ripping yarn that could have been a better film.
AD
