Junior Bonner (1972)

I've been a big fan of director Sam Peckinpah's work since I first saw The Wild Bunch and its forerunner Ride the High Country, each starring some of the best cowboy actors ever to throw a leg over a saddle and containing the poignancy of portraying men living outside their time - men who were born too late for the changing times they found themselves in but who still followed the old ways right to their doom.

Peckinpah, who started out directing TV series' like The Rifleman,  had several recurring themes in his work like the foregoing and I was always fascinated how he could weave his magic and still end up with a story with a moral.  Nearly any of his works are worth watching and many will become favorites if you make the effort to seek them out as there are few directors working any more that can put together a film as compelling as he could.  

Junior Bonner stars Steve McQueen as a modern day rodeo cowboy who is seeing his world change as the rodeo stops being the attraction it once was.  Now a lot of people when confronted with a difficulty like that will give up and die, but not Junior Bonner.  He is made of sterner stuff than that and it's a heroic quality that many of Peckinpah's protagonists reflect - for better or worse, they are their own men and they set their own challenges.

This movie is a drama that concerns the Bonner clan, dad Ace (Robert Preston); mom Elvira (Ida Lupino); brother Curley (Joe Don Baker) and Junior (Steve McQueen).  The men are pretty much worthless in the present tense while the mom is long suffering. Ace and Junior have wasted their time as rodeo riders while Curley has sold the family spread and made building lots out of it.  "I'm working on my first million while you're still working on eight seconds," he tells Junior in one exchange.

Everybody drives Cadillac's - signs of prestige and good times past; Junior's is several years old and is covered with brown splotchy residue - whether mud or cow flop is debatable. But he is a cowboy and his Cadillac is hooked to a horse trailer and he follows the rodeo wherever it leads, drinking his Miller High Life right out of the can, by golly.

The movie is fairly slow paced and will not delight action lovers but does give a good commentary on families and their black sheep and of course the changing times. As a matter of fact, we are going through changing times ourselves right now and nobody knows where it is going to end up.  Whether we will react like Curley, who takes advantage, or Junior who digs in his heels and hangs in we will certainly find out which way works for us.

The actors are very good and Ida Lupino and Robert Preston both have many memorable performances behind them as does Steve McQueen.  Supporting cast has real life cowpoke Ben Johnson as the rodeo promoter and Bill McKinney who also looks like a real life cowboy.  Steve McQueen looks like he did a lot of his own stunts and as a bull rider and bronc buster he took some pretty good falls.   The story while fairly slow moving does show a man on the edge of the frontier as he knows it. 

The MGM DVD has a good copy of the color 100 minute movie in 2.35:1 Todd AO format.  A full length commentary by Peckinpah scholars Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, Paul Weddle, and Nick Redman is included and is worth listening to.

Junior Bonner is a good character driven movie and should be seen by all Steve McQueen or Sam Peckinpah fans and rodeo aficionados.

Also recommended Sam Peckinpah films -

Ride the High Country

The Wild Bunch

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV