The Naked Spur

Howard Kemp is a determined bounty hunter in the Colorado territory, chasing the murderer Ben Vandergroat for the five thousand dollar reward that will let him buy back the ranch he lost. Along the way he reluctantly takes on two partners: Jesse Tate, an aging gold prospector, and Roy Anderson, a former soldier. The three of them capture Vandergroat in the Rocky Mountains, but the long journey back to Kansas becomes a test of nerves. Their prisoner works constantly to turn them against each other, hoping to escape, and Vandergroat's companion Lina Patch travels with the group.

The film was directed by Anthony Mann, the tenth of the twenty features he made in chronological order, arriving between Bend of the River in 1952 and The Glenn Miller Story in 1954. Harold Jack Bloom and Sam Rolfe wrote the screenplay, and William H. Wright produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Loew's. James Stewart leads as Howard Kemp, with Robert Ryan as Vandergroat, Janet Leigh as Lina, Ralph Meeker as Roy Anderson and Millard Mitchell as Jesse Tate.

Made for about one million dollars and running ninety-one minutes, the western drew strong notices on release, with critics rating it considerably higher than general audiences did. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from around fourteen thousand votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7 out of 10 from a much smaller base of 268 votes, and the critics' score is 8.3 out of 10 from twenty-two reviews.