The Naked Spur

1953 Western

Rating: 13/20

Special Note: More misleading breasts on a movie poster. This might be packed with technicolor thrills, but those breasts aren't in this.

Plot: Jimmy Stewart is looking for a man somewhere in the Rockies. Actually, he's chased said man all the way from Kansas. He meets a mentally-challenged failure of a gold prospector who agrees to help him find the man. The man, an unfortunate cowboy who suffers from that medical condition where he must perpetually wears a smarmy smile, is eventually found atop a rocky hill where he mistakes Jimmy Stewart and the prospector for a Jimmy Stewart lookalike and the ghost of his nemesis--the late Porcupine "Wildcat" Sam "Big Rifle" Skillet. He begins firing, and Jimmy Stewart and the other guy find themselves in a stalemate. In order to get the plot going again, they have to meet a third man, a man discharged from the military for having "a homoerotic mustache." Together, they come up with a plan to reach the top of the hill, only to find that the guy Jimmy Stewart has chased across the West has been traveling with a female companion, a woman who is exactly 1/4 the size of Jimmy Stewart (see poster). Jimmy Stewart, in a jealous rage, cries out, "Wh-wh-what's going on here? My junk's bigger than that there gal. What you pullin' here, Pete?" and then whips it out. The scene, as in all cowboy movies I've seen, climaxes with Jimmy Stewart spitting on his hand, lubricating Pete, and engaging in a little cowboy mountain love while the others look on. There are technicolor thrills galore as the others, and three mountain lions, join in. Then Jimmy Stewart's character remembers that he left his oven on, and everybody has to head back to Kansas.

Technicolor thrills! Gorgeous scenery and some complex characters make this a good-enough Western although it should have been more epic. Parts of the plot seem a little rushed and tension is lost because of it. I also had a hard time rooting for any of the characters. Their flaws are what pushed the plot along though. There's an interesting moral dilemma facing Stewart's character, but too much of this just doesn't seem real enough. Pretty average stuff.

Here I am wishing this was called The Naked Jimmy Stewart: