He also returned to the western genre, which he had visited previously only as a comedy in 1939's Destry Rides Again. Stewart's first film under this inspired game plan was Winchester '57, a taut action movie that also paired him with director Anthony Mann, whom he had worked with in theater more than fifteen years before.
Winchester '57 was a great film, and Stewart wisely continued to make edgy westerns with Mann. The formula was established: Steart was a good but angry man who had a stop a determined enemy through vigilante action. Bend of the River (1952) was another fine film, and The Naked Spur continued the theme.
But by the time of The Naked Spur, the drop off in quality was beginning to show. It was a better movie in some ways; studio moguls didn't miscast Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis in supporting roles to build their careers. The cast for The Naked Spur was well chosen. Reliable Millard Mitchell was a luckless prospector, Ralph Meeker an unreliable adventurer, both warily team with Stewart to collect a bounty on a cunning murderer (Robert Ryan). The wild card is Ryan's companion (Janet Leigh), who is morally torn between helping Ryan and Stewart.
Leigh's character is one of the problems with The Naked Spur. Like Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls, her unlikely presence is intended to conscript female interest. The bounty hunters trust her far too much and too readily, and her behavior in the final scene wraps things up too tidily.
It's also dubious that Mitchell would believe the treacherous Ryan's tales of gold in the very mountains that they journey through. Even an obsessed prospector, and especially an experienced one, would have known better than to trust a known killer.
But if The Naked Spur lacks some of the power of Winchester '57 and Bend of the River, it still packs a punch. Who can forget the sight of a wounded Stewart struggling to get onto his horse, or digging through a cave's rubble to reclaim wily Ryan? And Ryan makes a fine villain, his seemingly truthful assertions skilfully designed to sow discord among his captors.