The best films of James Stewart: #10 "The Naked Spur" (1953)

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Forget the easy going amiable James Stewart you are used to. The classic western “The Naked Spur” presents a weathered hardbitten Stewart who is not so nice. The film was directed by the underappreciated Anthony Mann who worked with Stewart on eight pictures five of which were westerns. The Technicolor picture was filmed on location at the mountains outside Durango, Colorado and Lone Pine, California. The time is 1868. Stewart’s character returned from the Civil War to discover his wife sold his ranch and ran off with another man. He has become a bitter bounty hunter saving money to buy back the ranch. Now he is on the trail of a man he knows that killed a marshal in Abilene, Kansas and forced under circumstances to enlist aid from a grizzled old prospector and disgraced former army officer. There is action including a gunfight with Indians but “The Naked Spur” is basically a psychological western. This is not about who is the fastest gun but the greater mental will between Stewart and bad guy Robert Ryan. Stewart has to come to terms with his anger and betrayal. Janet Leigh provides the female complication. A box office success, “The Naked Spur” is no kiddie Saturday matinee western and Stewart made a great hard case in the saddle.