Junior Bonner Reviews

A trifle clumsy, but affecting nonetheless. Steve McQueen stars in this Sam Peckinpah-directed film as the title character, an aging rodeo cowboy who returns to his small hometown of Prescott, Arizona, and learns that nothing stays the same. Saddened to discover that his parents (Lupino and Preston) have split and that his brother (Baker) is getting rich selling off parcels of his father's land, Junior tries to regain his self-esteem by staying on a previously unrideable bull at the town's annual Fourth of July rodeo. There's much to recommend here, including some fine rodeo footage, winning characterizations from Johnson as the man who supplies the livestock for the rodeo and from Taylor as the owner of the bar, and an especially strong performance by McQueen as the cowboy who realizes that he can't go home on the range again. Lupino and Preston are especially fine among a good supporting cast. But the territory covered is similar to Nick Ray's earlier, superior THE LUSTY MEN.