The Naked Spur

Anthony Mann: The Naked Spur (US 1953) with Janet Leigh (Lina Patch) and James Stewart (Howard Kemp). La Cinémathèque française.

L'Appât / Teräskannus / Stålsporren.

    US © 1952 Loew's Incorporated. Year of release: 1953. PC: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.

Anthony Mann / États-Unis / 1953 / 91 min / 35 mm / 1.37:1 / Technicolor / VOSTF

Avec James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan.

    Soundtrack: "Beautiful Dreamer" (Stephen Foster, posthumous 1864).

    Loc: – Rocky Outcrop "The Naked Spur" near Durango, Colorado – Durango, Colorado – Animas River, Durango, Colorado – San Juan Mountains, Colorado – Rocky Mountains, Colorado – Lone Pine, California.

    World premiere: 6 Feb 1953 Denver, Colorado.

    Helsinki premiere: 1 Jan 1954 Aloha - O.Y. Fox Films A.B.

    Vu vendredi, le 18 avril 2025, La Cinémathèque française, Rétrospective Le Western, en 25 films indispensables, Salle Henri Langlois, 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris, M° Bercy Lignes 14, 6

La Cinémathèque française: " Trois apprentis chasseurs de prime s'escriment à conduire à bon port leur prisonnier, manipulateur et cynique, pour toucher une prime. Un huis clos au cœur d'une nature élégiaque, immense et périlleuse. Et une quinte flush pour le duo Mann/Stewart, qui signe un cinquième chef-d'œuvre après les sensationnels Winchester 73, La Porte du diable, Les Furies et Les Affameurs. "

" Figure névrosée d'une pentalogie du Far West, James Stewart ne quitte plus la veste usée du cow-boy fruste et tourmenté, celle d'un chasseur de primes contraint d'accepter l'aide de deux compagnons peu fiables. Avec ses avalanches de rochers, sa grotte qui s'écroule ou son torrent tumultueux, L'Appât est un modèle de maîtrise dans l'utilisation du paysage. Les accidents de relief agissent sur la psychologie des personnages, autant qu'ils exacerbent leurs divergences, au cours d'un périple régi par la rivalité, la manipulation, le cynisme et la cupidité, que seule la blondeur féminine de Janet Leigh parvient à atténuer. "

AA: The five Westerns by Anthony Mann and James Stewart (Winchester '73, Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country and The Man from Laramie) belong to my favourites since childhood, but in the 2024 Cinémathèque française retrospective dedicated to Mann I skipped them.

The Naked Spur is one of the great Westerns. I included it in my MMM Film Guide of best films, and it gets better at each viewing. At last I see it in the cinema, and it's hard to start writing. The screenplay is excellent. The Rocky Mountains are breathtaking. The superb cast consists of only five main actors plus a band of 12 Blackfoot Indians in a tragic sequence. 

In 1868, Howard Kemp (James Stewart) wanders in the mountains in search of a killer wanted for shooting a marshal in Abilene, Kansas. He hires the old prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell). Lt. Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker), who calls himself an Indian hunter, elbows himself into the company. He has been dishonourably discharged for raping a Blackfoot chief's daughter. They track down the wanted man, Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), a protector of Lina Patch (Janet Leigh) since her father was killed in a bank robbery.

As a child I saw The Naked Spur as an adventure thriller. Now I admire it as a psychological drama, in which character is revealed through action. The central character is Howard Kemp (James Stewart), a man whose secrets come to light in key turning-points. First believed to be a sheriff, he is exposed as a bounty hunter. After Howard's fever dream, in which he calls the name of Mary, we understand that he is a veteran of the Civil War and Mary was his wife who ran away with another man and sold their cattle farm.

When Kemp realizes that the band of Blackfoot Indians following them are after Anderson, he dismisses him. Kemp and the Blackfoot chief exchange signs of peace. But behind Kemp's back, Anderson starts to shoot the Blackfoot, who all die, and sheltering Vandergroat, Kemp is hurt in the leg.

The most intelligent person on the voyage is Vandergroat, the evil genius, a master of divide et impera. He dominates the airspace psychologically, and the movie grows into a battle of wills relevant to the Dostoevskyan lineage (Porfiri vs. Raskolnikov, Myshkin vs. Rogozhin) familiar also from Hitchcock's superman cycle which culminated in Strangers on a Train (Guy Haines vs. Bruno Antony). In all these stories there is the sense that the psychologically dominant villain is the evil double of the protagonist. Vandergroat turns the members of the convoy against each other and gets free. In the showdowns Kemp is again badly hurt and Tate and Anderson die, as well as Vandergroat himself. 

Seen on Good Friday, it's easy to see The Naked Spur as a passion play. James Stewart gives a powerful performance as the agonized, deeply traumatized anti-hero who has lost his mental balance because of the betrayal he has endured. The pain and suffering in Howard Kemp's character is profoundly convincing. The finale is a self-revelation. Kemp realizes how low he has sunk, bursts into tears, buries Ben's body and rides off to California with Lina.

On the road to Vertigo, Stewart gave performances that anticipated his unforgettable interpretation as Scottie Ferguson, and this is one of them. The theme of vertigo is organic in the Rocky Mountains adventure. The fear of heights is innate since the beginning. The terrains get increasingly rugged along the journey, as the Animas River gets wilder.

There are four Hitchcock connections in The Naked Spur. James Stewart (the star of four Hitchcock films during the same period when he starred in his eight films with Mann). Janet Leigh (who gave the performance of a lifetime in Psycho, enhancing her role with heartfelt interiority during the long ride into the night). The vertigo theme. And the evil genius of the villain as the dark double of the protagonist.

Westerns are usually horizontal, but The Naked Spur is vertical, appropriately for the vertigo theme. The cinematography by William Mellor is distinguished by superb extreme high angle and low angle shots.

André Bazin compared the colour cinematography of The Man from Laramie with Cézanne: 

"Grass is mixed up with rocks, trees with desert, snow with pastures and clouds with the blue of the sky. This blending of elements and colours is like the token of the secret tenderness nature holds for man, even in the most arduous trials of its seasons."

The Naked Spur was Mann's second Western in Technicolor. The print on display failed to do justice to Technicolor.