Jubal

You know, sometimes I think it's givin' the good Lord the worst of it to say he invented people.

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 leading man 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 - and even then he (correctly) chooses to keep some critical moments off the screen, gaining results far better than if stuff had actually been...

I wasn’t really an huge fan of Glenn Ford but he turns in a solid performance here as the wandering, and ailing, cowpoke “Jubal” who gets himself rescued and then hired by local rancher “Shep” (Ernest Borgnine). The latter man likes his mettle and attitude and soon makes him foreman, much to the chagrin of the trouble-making “Pinky” (Rod Steiger) and to the intrigue of his wife “Mae” (Valerie French). Though her husband adores her, she is bored with her life and sees this handsome new stranger as a potential diversion. He isn’t interested, but she isn’t the giving up easily type, and soon - with a little help from “Pinky”, suspicions are running riot and things start to look quite precarious for not just “Jubal” but for “Mae” too! It’s the ensemble cast that works well here delivering a tautly directed story of jealously, lust and envy framed by some grand scale photography. It offers a better, more mischievous, role for an on-form French, too, which isn’t always the case for women in westerns and she plays the role of vulnerable manipulatrix well against the brash malevolence of Steiger and the kindly strength of Ford. It has a bit of sophistication to it, this film, and though there is plenty of action, there’s a decent chunk of thought gone into it too.