The Naked Spur

Spindly James Stewart gets his man and Janet Leigh to boot in M.G.M.'s brawling Technicolor western, The Naked Spur. He also meets a gold prospector, a cavalry officer, and a murderer. As if this was not enough t make him a bonfire western movie hero, Stewart more or less survives Indian attacks and avalanches.

Filmed with Colorado's Rocky Mountains, as a back-drop, Naked Spur recounts the trials of a Kansas rancher, Stewart, who pursues a desperate killer, Robert, Ryan, for the price on his head. After capturing the killer, he soon liquidates him (not without reason) and then departs with Janet Leigh for California, his pockets empty. All this intends to point up the moral that Stewart should never have tried to get a pecuniary reward in the first place.

Helping Stewart capture his quarry are Millard Mitchell, an unstable, disillusioned prospector, and Ralph Meeker, a lecherous dishonorably discharged Army officer. Janet Leigh, albeit in buckskins, looks out of place as sort of a roughneck ingenue.

With enough action to make a dozen westerns, Naked Spur should entertain most everybody. The plot is no worse than any of its type. But it is James Stewart's long-legged form and drawling voice that lift the film just over the mediocre western class.

On the same bill is Corsican Vengeance, which continues the adventures of the Corsican brothers. It is gratifying to see those biological miracles, split Siamese twins, still sword playing after fifty years. Paula Raymond and Richard Greene have the leads.