The Lusty Men (1952)

Rodeo Soap. - The Lusty Men review by Steve

Melodrama set around the rodeo circuit of the new west in the 1950s. Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum) is a busted up  ex-bullriding champion who coaches Wes Merritt (Arthur Kennedy) to riches and celebrity and sees him make the same mistakes as he did... while Jeff falls for Wes' combustable wife (Susan Hayward).

The Lusty Men depicts the west as a place where working traditions have been transformed into leisure and entertainment. It's a bit trashy, like an airport novel. There are a few bum notes; Susan Hayward is a great actor and she brings a lot of energy, but she is too polished for a shack reared rodeo wife travelling the trailer parks of the famous towns of the old west.

But it's a fun, volatile performance, and Robert Mitchum is easily a match as the brooding, bruised former champion. He was always a convincing cowboy. There's some fine low-rent poetic dialogue. Roy Webb's orchestral score evokes the big skies of the western without resorting to cliché, and gives the film an epic quality.

 It succeeds because it presents a vivid impression of the wild west carnival, populated by drunk stars and their suffering wives and transient groupies. The riders compete for finite prize money, which they spend on the road until they drop out with broken bones, or punch drunk, or worse, and empty pockets. The action in the ring is convincing, thanks to the stunt riders. There's a poor ending, but it creates a credible and unfamiliar world.