The Naked Spur

The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann, 1953) Five desperate people in the Rocky Mountains. That's what Anthony Mann's 
The Naked Spur sears down to. Each one is flawed, if not down-right evil, and the twisted dynamics of their connections with each other are complicated and web-like. Isolated in the mountains, there is no Society or Civilization to get in their separate but intertwined ways or to pass judgement...or provide judgement. It's as if they're the last people on Earth, and (as the saying goes) it's not big enough for all of them.

Howard Kemp (James Stewart) is stalking prey in the mountains of Colorado. He runs into an old prospector, Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell, one of my favorite character actors) and tells him he's tracking a man, Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), for the murder of a sheriff in Abilene. He offers Tate $20 to help find Vandergroat and Tate takes him up on it, thinking that he's a sheriff, himself. I mean, he has the "wanted" poster.

Kemp and Tate find Vandergroat "treed" (as it were) on the high peak of a cliff. Attempts to get up there are met with sudden and dangerous man-made rock-slides. Tate is too old to make the attempt, and although Kemp is desperate to get up there, he gets injured in the attempt, the first of many injuries he will sustain in the film. The two back-track to see if they can find a back-route to surprise Vandergroat.

Aid comes in the form of former Union Lieutenant of the 6th Cavalry Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker) who is heading east after serving. Anderson is taking the more precarious route to avoid entanglements with the Blackfeet tribe, as it seems they're tracking him after he compromised the virtue of the chief's daughter. Naturally suspicious, Kemp grills him about his service and when he demands to see Anderson's release papers sees he's been dishonorably discharged for being "morally unstable." 

In this movie, he'll fit right in.

Anderson scales the cliff and gets the drop on Vandergroat (Ryan is creepily brilliant in the role, a standout among great performances). But, Vandergroat is not alone. Anderson is attacked by Lina Patch (Janet Leigh, all of 26 at the time of filming, it was already her 19th film), daughter of Vandergroat's bank-robbing buddy and the desperado takes advantage of the distraction to attack Anderson—one of Ryan's effective little touches is to laugh while he's engaged in a death-struggle with his opponent, which is unique and unnerving. Tate and Kemp manage to show up on time to keep Anderson from being killed, but once Kemp has Vandergroat captured, he begins to lose control of the situation.

"Now, ain't that the way? A man gets set-up for trouble head-on
and it sneaks up behind him every time!"

For one thing, Vandergroat makes it known that he's known Kemp a long time and has no respect for him, calling him "Howie." He also lets Tate and Anderson know that Kemp is no sheriff, he's just a bounty-hunter who wants the $5,000 reward for his capture so he can buy his land back, which he lost during his time in the Civil War. For Tate and Donovan, this immediately changes their view of Kemp and they start making noises about splitting the $5000 reward, something Kemp wants no part of, wanting the entire reward for himself.

Kemp's duplicity, Tate's greed, Anderson's "unstable" morality are all fertile ground for Vandergroat to work: he uses Lina as a pawn for the affections of both Anderson and Kemp, fills Tate's head with tales of striking it rich prospecting, and preys on Lina's loyalty for being the only man who's ever treated her right. By playing on each person's weak spots, he knows that eventually he'll get himself freed from capture and away from the hangman's noose.

And for Kemp, he's fighting other demons besides Vandergroat.  Before the War, he was just a farmer, but the War made him lose everything—his farm, his girl, his trust, his money...he's a desperate man whose only a few belt-notches away from being a gang-lander just like his quarry. He's just trying to get back to the place he was before the war, and if hunting a murderer for reward will get him that much closer, then hunt he will.

But, Vandergroat is as conniving as Kemp is distrustful and not so easily played as Tate and Donovan. It will come down to a battle of wits between the two men and any advantage Vandergroat can use against him is played—Lina's affections, Anderson's jealousy, Tate's pliable loyalty. There's also a psychological advantage; Vandergroat's extremely confident and Kemp is doubting, it's not a case of good winning out over evil, but of strength versus weakness, and Vandergroat takes advantage of every injury, accidental or deliberate to try and kill Kemp...by any means...or any ally...necessary.

The Naked Spur was the third of the five westerns Mann and Stewart would collaborate on during the 1950's, that period when Stewart was experimenting with material and directors like Hitchcock and Mann who would use his Americana persona as a counter-point to stories of obsession and neurosis that show that decency is just a raw nerve away from being exposed as fragile and undependable.

The isolation is key here. In previous Mann-Stewart westerns, there was a back-drop of civilization early on, rough-hewn and hard-scrabble as it may be. Here, in the mountains, there's nothing but the law that is made up on the spot. And it's jungle law. Survival of the fittest. Nature plays a hand in who will survive—both Nature in the wild and the nature of man. The terrain may be wild, but it follows rules of moderation and any excess is dealt with.  By the end of The Naked Spur, the environment is back in balance, with no chance of spinning out of control. Fires are tempered, and the Earth is replenished.

Anthony Mann had a lot of experience dealing with the nature of humans. He started his career in the dark and stormy nights of film-noir, where the worst instinct of people are on display and desperation is just a symptom. But, as this presents, darkness can be found in the light of the sun and the clean, unpolluted vistas of mountaintops. Light doesn't penetrate the darkness than can be found in souls.

For folks newer to film who might not relate, The Naked Spur is sort of like The Hateful Eight...only created by folks who are actually artistically creative...some 62 years earlier. 

The Naked Spur was added to the National Film Registry in 1997.