I know - it's a dreadful title which would put off most people. 'Those nasty, lusty men have been here again.' Howard Hughes' approved title The Losers would have been much better. In fact this is a good film about rodeo competitors... well, no, actually it's the classic romantic triangle, according to PB, 'this particular triangle (two men, one woman) - as Robert Graves has pointed out in his studies of mythology - is the most ancient story known'. As Hayward utters at one point, "Men! I'd like to fry 'em all in deep fat!"
The story is simple. A married man has a dream to earn enough money to buy his own farm, and thinks that through rodeo competitions he can achieve his dream; and thus is delighted to meet a former rodeo star, get him a job, and persuade him to help, which he does. The only problem is his rodeo success goes to his head (particularly with regard to another woman) and in his neglect of his wife he leads her path open to the former rodeo star. These three are Arthur Kennedy, Robert Mitchum and Susan Hayward, a good trio of acting.
The actual rodeo contests, particularly the events involving bulls, look frightening. This by the way is no historical thing - rodeos are alive and kicking all over the USA still.
'The film was inspired by Claude Stanush's Life magazine story, and scripted by one-time cowboy David Dortort, and Horace McCoy, who spent several months following the rodeo tour to catch the flavour of the performers and their unique language. Nicholas Ray directed in uncompromising fashion for producer Jerry Wald and associate producer Thomas S Gries.' (The RKO Story' Jewell / Harbin, 1982.) 'Another writer, Alfred Hayes, worked on several scenes from ideas Mitchum and Ray came up with during the filming, Jerry Wald contributed a few moments here and there, and yet another writer, One Minute to Zero's rewrite man Andrew Solt, served as a stopgap for one scene without even knowing what the picture was about. Many of the sequences shot on location at actual rodeos would be very close to pure improvisation.' (Lee Server 'Baby I Don't Care', 2001.)
Mitchum called Ray 'the mystic' for his way of pondering a scene and Hayward 'the Old Gray Mare' for being continually cantankerous.
The washed up rodeo star is Arthur Hunnicutt. With Carol Nugent, Maria Hart, Lorna Thayer.
And the marvellous Lee Garmes in action:
RKO. Scored by Roy Webb, edited by Ralph Dawson.
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