Simply A Masterpiece

A different way of telling a story

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

When Jubal Troop is found on Shep Horgan's ranch he isn't well so they take him in; for no apparent reason Pinky, one of the ranch hands takes and instant dislike to him; this dislike grows when Shep hires Jubal and Shep's wife Mae starts to take an interest in him; it is clear that before Jubal's arrival she had been involved with Pinky. Jubal hasn't been working there for long before he and Shep become close friends and he gets offered the job of foreman. Mae continues to make advances towards Jubal but he continues to reject them; out of loyalty to his friend and because he has taken an interest in Naomi, a girl travelling through as part of a wagon-train that has stopped on Shep's land. When Shep asks Jubal to escort his wife home one night Pinky takes the opportunity to poison Shep's mind against his friend; he heads home and finds his wife alone but as he enters the room she calls out Jubal's name thinking he'd finally decided to sleep with her. Shep heads off in a rage with the intention of killing Jubal; he is the one who ends up dead though and Jubal is forced to run as Pinky spreads further lies about him. Pinky thinks everything will go his way now but Mae rejects his advances and he hunts for Jubal with the intention of killing him.This western's plot is clearly inspired by 'Othello', although there are notably differences. Jealousy rears its ugly head early on and although there is little action early on there is a simmering sense of tension as Pinky starts to feel hard done by as Mae rejects him then Shep overlooks him for promotion; in both cases to Jubal. Rod Steiger excels in this roll; playing Pinky as a genuinely nasty piece of work rather than as a pantomime villain. His isn't the only good performance; Glenn Ford puts in a nicely understated performance as Jubal, Ernest Borgnine is likable as Shep and Charles Bronson, in an early role, is good as Jubal's friend Reb. When the action starts it is more low-key than most westerns I've seen but that doesn't mean it isn't exciting; the showdown between Shep and Jubal is particularly good. As well as an interesting story the film looks great as does the Wyoming scenery it was filmed in. If you are a fan of westerns this one is certainly worth watching; just don't expect none stop action.

Jubal is directed by Delmer Daves and adapted by Daves and Russell S. Hughes from the Paul Wellman novel, Jubal Troop. It stars Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Charles Bronson, Valerie French & Felicia Farr. David Raksin scores the music and Charles Lawton Jr. is the cinematographer. Out of Columbia Pictures it's a CinemaScope/Technicolor production, and location for the shoot is Jackson Hole, The Grand Tetons, Wyoming, USA.Jubal Troop (Ford) is found exhausted out on the range and given shelter at a nearby ranch owned by Shep Horgan (Borgnine). Shep oversees Jubal's recovery and offers him a job as part of his ranch team. This is met with objection by Shep's mean foreman, Pinky (Steiger), but Shep is undeterred and Jubal goes on to prove his worth in the position. Shep and Jubal get on great, but trouble is brewing because Shep's pretty Canadian wife, Mae (French), has taken quite a shine to Jubal. This further enrages Pinky, and a hornets nest is stirred, spelling trouble for practically everyone.Delmer Daves' (Dark Passage/Broken Arrow) Jubal is often likened to William Shakespeare's Othello, that's something that, whilst being flattering, is best ignored. For Jubal, and its makers, deserve credit in their own right for producing such a tight, tense, adult Western. It's a film that's driven by characters who are caught in a web of jealousy and suppressed emotions, with the underrated Daves bringing some psychological dimensions into the narrative. He's also a director who knows that such a story benefits greatly by not including action and violence just for the sake of upping the tempo. He paces this film to precision, winding up the tension to breaking point, then to unleash all the pent up fury on the viewers, but even then he (correctly) chooses to keep some critical moments off the screen, gaining results far better than if stuff had actually been shown the audience (two shots in the finale are stupendously memorable). This griping human drama is played out in front of magnificent scenery, where Daves and Lawton Jr. (3:10 to Yuma/Comanche Station) utilise the CinemaScope and Technicolor facilities to their maximum potential. Filling the widescreen frame with majestic mountains,vibrant slanted forests and rolling grassy hills. The Grand Tetons location had previously been used in other notable Western movies, such as The Big Trail, The Big Sky and famously for George Stevens' Shane. While post Jubal it served a considerable purpose for Dances with Wolves. All of this grandeur for the eyes is boosted by Raksin's (Laura/Fallen Angel) score, with gentle swirls for the tender Jubal/Naomi thread and rushes for the posse sequences, it's an arrangement very at one with the mood and tempo of the story.The cast list oozes star power, and gets performances to match. Ford is a master at roles calling for underplayed intensity, and that's what he gives Jubal Troop. Keeping the characters cards close to his chest in the beginning, Ford pitches it perfect as the emotionally bottled up drifter. Borgnine, a year after his Oscar win for Marty, is perfect foil to Ford's calmness, he's in turn big and boisterous, often crude, yet under the bluster is a sweet and honest man. And there in the middle of the three men is Steiger, bringing the method. Pinky is brooding, devious and one pulse beat away from being psychotic, but Steiger, with a menacing drawl flowing out of his mouth, is creepily mannered. Steiger and Daves clashed other how to play Pinky, the director wanting something more akin to Ford's serene like role play, but Steiger wanted it played bitter and coiled spring like; the actor getting his way when producer William Fadiman sided with him.Valerie French (Decision at Sundown) looks beautiful in Technicolor, and in spite of an accent problem, does a neat line in how to play a smoldering fuse in a box of fire crackers. Felicia Farr (The Last Wagon) is the polar opposite, religiously comely and virginal, she's a touch underused but the play off with French impacts well in the story. Key support goes to Charles Bronson (The Magnificent Seven) as loyal friend to Jubal, Reb. Played with laid back machismo, it's something of what would become the trademark Bronson performance. Other notables in the support cast are the always value for money Noah Beery Jr. (Wagons West), John Dierkes (The Hanging Tree) and Jack Elam (The Man From Laramie).Damn fine film that's worthy of being sought out by those interested in the best of the 50s slew of Adult Westerns. 8.5/10

"There are two types of human beings that I deserve consideration: those men who get money at all costs because they consider only in this way shall be accepted by a woman and women who are attracted only by money, they decide to indulge in such men. Here ensured an unhappy relationship. First, as he is underestimated and is, therefore, deeply jealous, believe that because they have paid very well to the woman (who pulled out of the blue, he says) is entitled to her to be his slave. Not open to anyone who looks, speaks, or leave to have another man as a friend than him. He does not want to study or to work to avoid contact with others who may be attracted by her beauty. In short, a man so insecure and so afraid that if he had locked up in a cage that he alone had the key. Secondly, no woman, fairly lucid, is willing to live in such conditions. And so, feeling bitter about the persecution and imprisonment, and to understand that material objects did not fill, and that the openness and the deep affection that every woman wants, not what is in man, the woman begins to be hard on him, showing derogatory and does not respond to petting as he wanted. And so began the beatings, drunkenness, infidelities one way or another... and an eternal bitterness filled with tears and frustration, until one of the two decide that you must walk away from that relationship".This comment, I've taken verbatim from my book "Tomorrow the sun will rise", defines an experience similar to that recreates, to great effect, this master of cinema called in Delmer Daves his film "Jubal", a story of a landowner in his fifties (the always brilliant Ernest Borgnine) who married a beautiful and sensual young woman (Valerie French) who only sees in him a rough man, covered in money.Then their lives will intersect in a shepherd named Jubal (Glenn Ford) who, as estimated by the farmer, became his foreman and the type of man who will definitely attract the bitter girl.Daves then be responsible for defining human profiles are credible, they are nuanced and have actual reasons that explain their actions. The staging is sober, a real estates it is the scene of loneliness to this clash of emotions. "Jubal" is a psychological western where the action is focused essentially on the emotions and suspicions of the characters, from the shootings and fights to the background, without the least decay rate or the force of history. A film for any anthology of classic westerns.

Othello out West. Delmar Daves' great and unjustly neglected western finds Glenn Ford's title character falling prey to ranch-hand Rod Steiger's Iago-like jealously when Ernest Borgnine's Othello-like father figure picks him as his foreman and surrogate son. Throw in the machinations of wife Valerie French who has the hots for Ford and it isn't difficult for Steiger to convince Borgnine that there's something going on.If Shakespeare's play is the blueprint, Daves' film is suitably complex in its own right and if Steiger displays a tendency to chew the scenery as he was wont to do, both Borgnine and Ford are outstanding, with Ford in particular proving something of a revelation. He has a terrific scene with Felicia Farr in which he describes his appalling childhood and how it made him the man he is. It's also magnificently photographed in cinemascope by Charles Lawton Jr; the exterior scenes are often breathtaking while the interiors use the widescreen to superb spatial effect.