The film's world premiere was at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, Texas.[3]
Plot
When longtime professional rodeo competitor Jeff McCloud is injured by a Brahma bull that he was riding, he quits the circuit and begins to drift. Hitchhiking to tiny Bandera, Texas, he finds the idyllic home of his youth in the Texas Hill Country decrepit and owned by a poor but covetous old man. Penniless, Jeff couldn't buy it if he wanted to.
A shattered memory to Jeff, the tiny framehouse is nonetheless the dream home for hardscrabble Wes Merritt and his wife Louise, who are painstakingly saving Wes's meager cowhand wages at a nearby ranch to buy the small spread. Wes immediately recognizes Jeff as a former champion rodeo rider and introduces himself, then helps Jeff gets a job alongside him. Wes, who has competed in some local rodeos, wants Jeff to help him improve his skills so he can chase big prize money in the professional circuit.
Wes enters a local event without telling Louise. When he does well, he joins the bigtime, with Jeff as his trainer and 50-50% partner. Louise, who grew up with nothing, is against the idea, because it puts Wes in harm's way and means abandoning both their securely rented home and plans for a permanent one. She ultimately consents after extracting a promise from Wes he'll quit when they have saved enough for the ranch house.
Wes is a big success from the start. It rapidly becomes clear he loves the riding and the fame more even than the money he's raking in. As Louise becomes acquainted with rodeo life, she becomes increasingly disenchanted. Jeff's friend Booker Davis, once a champion competitor himself, is now a crippled old man with little to show for his efforts. When banged-up veteran circuit rider Buster Burgess is gored and killed by a bull, he leaves a bitter widow, and Louise unable to bear watching her husband compete. Still, Wes presses on, refusing to quit when they have enough for the house. As he grows an ever more swelled head and parties his winnings away, Louise gets fed up and starts staying home in their trailer even at night.
Susan Hayward in the dress she wore to try to vanquish Babs
Matters come to a head when wealthy man-hungry circuit hanger-on Babs makes a second play for Wes. The first had ended with a swift kick to her curvy rear from Louise. This time she pours a drink on Babs's head to cool her off, but ends up merely leaving emptyhanded in a huff. Jeff, who had come to be attracted to Louise and earlier that evening had pitched her some sincere woo, asks her if she could love another man. Even though she too had warmed up towards him - after initially growing to despise him and the effect he had had on her husband and the couple's simple stable life together - she proclaims her loyalty to Wes. Babs get left behind, and Wes sends Jeff packing, tarring him a freeloader and barking that he is tired of taking all the risks and giving Jeff half of the prize money.
Rebuffed, Jeff impetuously returns to the rodeo despite not being in shape. He gains back Wes's respect by immediately doing well in the first couple of events his very first time out. He then shows his old stuff in bronc riding, but his foot gets stuck in his stirrup when he is finally thrown; twisted and dragged violently on the ground, he is then crushed when the horse falls and rolls over him. Louise rushes to his side in the first aid shack and seeks to comfort him. Reciting his mantra - There never was a horse that couldn't be rode; there never was a cowboy who couldn't be throwed - a final time, he dies in her arms from a punctured lung. Arriving moments later, Wes learns of Jeff's grisly end from Louise, quits the rodeo, and leaves arm-in-arm with her for Bandera...with Booker and his young daughter in tow as cowhand and company.
The screenplay was "suggested by" an article written by Claude Stanush that was published in Life magazine in 1946. The screenwriters credited were Horace McCoy and David Dortort, but some sources claim that Alfred Hayes and Andrew Solt contributed to the script without being credited.[4]
In a review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther praised the film's realism: "This vivid and pungent demonstration of the activities of professional 'saddle tramps'—the cowboys who scratch erratic livings on the circuit of the Western rodeos—gives such a harsh, discouraging insight into this form of commercialized sport that every backyard bronc-buster who sees it should go back to being a railroad engineer...Director Nicholas Ray has really captured the muscle and thump of rodeos."[6]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film held a 100% approval rating in 2022 based on reviews from 15 critics, with an average rating of 8.2 out of 10.[7] In 1985 Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called it a "masterpiece by Nicholas Ray—perhaps the most melancholy and reflective of his films (1952)."[8]In the 2000s[clarify] Gary Tooze of DVDbeaver also highly praised the film: "This is one of the best westerns—period. Mitchum is at his very best. It carries a documentary-style presence at times but is steeped in emotion. Absolute masterpiece."[9]
