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What makes it different from others?

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Director: NICHOLAS RAY. Screenplay: Horace McCoy, David Dortort. Based on a story by Claude Stanush. Uncredited screenplay contributors: Alfred Hayes, Andrew Solt, Jerry Wald. Photography: Lee Garmes. Film editor: Ralph Dawson. Art directors: Albert S. D'Agostino and Alfred Herman. Set decorators: Darrell Silvera and Jack Mills. Make-up: Mel Berns. Hair styles: Larry Germain. Music: Roy Webb. Music director: Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Stunts: Chuck Roberson, Richard Farnsworth, Fred Carson. Wardrobe: Michael Woulfe. Assistant director: Edward Killy. Sound recording: Clem Portman, Phil Brigandi. RCA Sound System. Producers: Norman Krasna, Jerry Wald. Associate producer: Tom Gries. A Wald-Krasna Production. Copyright 1 October 1952 by Wald-Krasna Productions, Inc. Released through RKO Radio Pictures. New York opening at the Criterion: 24 October 1952. U.S. release: 1 October 1952. U.K. release: 11 May 1953. Australian release: 5 March 1953. 113 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An ambitious ranch-hand (Arthur Kennedy) enlists the aid of a former champion rodeo star (Robert Mitchum) to help him win prizes on the circuit. COMMENT: The name of Horace McCoy on the credits certainly raises anticipation. And the first scenes indeed carry lots of promise. Burt Mustin even has a sizable role which he plays with solid conviction. Unfortunately, once Susan Hayward arrives on the scene, the script is watered down in favor of the usual feminine histrionics. As soon as you see Susan, looking every inch the dramatic actress, you know for sure what she is going to carry on about: "What's more important?" she'll ask the typically hen-pecked Arthur Kennedy. "A high-flying sprint on the rodeo circuit or settling down on a two- bit ranch to watch cows eat grass?" With the certainty that two plus two invariably equals four, we can tell straightaway how the movie will end. It's a shame that so much of the screenplay is thrown on Hayward and Kennedy's lackluster shoulders. Mitchum's character is much more interesting but, aside from the promising introductory scenes, he is handed few opportunities. Director Nicholas Ray and cinematographer Lee Garmes do their best for Mitch, evoking some memorable images (the star limping across the now deserted rodeo grounds after an unsuccessful day) but they cannot overcome the patently obvious twists of the plot. Some of the support players, however, do manage to excel, particularly Walter Coy as a psychotic, gored cowboy and the seductive Eleanor Todd who makes her camp-following siren equally vivid and memorable.

"The Lusty Men." What a deplorable title. Sounds as if it ought to star Audie Murphy, with Joan O'Brien as the mammus girl and John McIntyre as "the sheriff." But it's considerably better than that.Not that the plot is very original. An older guy takes a talented newcomer under his wing and the tyro gets an attitude. It could be Paul Newman and Tom Cruise as pool players or, more aptly, it's likely to have been drawn from a successful movie about boxing, "Champion," with Kirk Douglas.Nor is the acting especially outstanding. When Mitchum got his hands on the right role he could really swing, but here he's his usual sleepy self. Arthur Kennedy, as the talented newcomer, is good enough but the role itself is formulaic. With each successful appearance at a rodeo, busting broncos, bull dogging, calf roping, riding the Brahma bull (pronounced Bray-ma), his head expands along with his ego and he begins to neglect his loving and dutiful wife, Susan Hayward, developing instead a taste for drinking, gambling, and loose blonds. Hayward herself is miscast. She's not a slightly worn waitress from a tamale joint. That's Patricia Neal's role. Hayward projects toughness but I'm afraid she's Edythe Marrener from Brooklyn.It occurs to me that the film borrows from another pattern: the conflict between two partners in life, one of whom wants to settle down and the other who wants to keep moving and living the free life. Kirk Douglas was the rootless drifter in "Lonely Are the Brave," but he had no companion except his horse, Whiskey. A closer fit has Mitchum as the happy drifter and Deborah Kerr as the tough wife who longs for a farm in "The Sundowners." Crossing the line into the absurd, Bob Hope always wanted to go home to Sioux Falls and Bing Crosby kept coming up with plans to find a secret gold mine in the Road pictures of the 40s.There's another thing too. Mitchum is an ex prize winner at rodeos and he stumbles on Kennedy more or less by accident. Kennedy agrees to split any winnings at the contests if Mitchum shows him the ropes and teaches him the tricks. But we see NONE of that teaching. All I learned was that when you're aboard an animal in the chute and you want it to open, you shout "Outside!" And when you ride a bull you tie your left hand into place with a rope, but I already knew that thanks to a shipmate of mine in the service who was a kinsman of such a contestant. There isn't one second of Kennedy's practicing with a bucking horse or a laso. Plenty of scenes of the contests themselves, aimed at an audience who loves to see some guy thrown on his bum and mauled by a one-ton brute.So those are all the irritants. What lifts it above the average are the character touches, presumably from Horace McCoy's adaptation of Claude Stanush's novel. Whoever was responsible for the screenplay knew a thing or two about rodeos and what goes on behind the scenes. What goes on can be pretty retrograde. A man has to prove to himself and others that he's not "afraid." Kennedy often protests indignantly that he's not "scared" of being hurt.The other thing is Nicholas Ray's direction, to the extent that he can unshackle himself from the more banal parts of the script. Mitchum dies at the end. But he doesn't declare his love for Hayward on his deathbed. That love, which has only been intimated, goes unspoken. The death itself is bloodless. And instead of grimacing, then closing his eyes and rolling his head on its side -- the side facing the camera -- as almost all Hollywood's dying people do, he rolls AWAY from the camera onto his side and clutches Hayward's hands. The camera drifts up from Mitchum's naked back to Hayward's face. It's only from the change in her expression that we know he's given up the ghost. There are a couple of other scenes, equally nuanced, and if Ray had been able to get more out of Mitchum and had someone with brains and sensitivity buff the script, it could have been a very good movie indeed.

Don't let the title fool you. Apparently part of the studio's design to tempt a broader audience in to see this film, 'The Lusty Men' is just not a very good title for it. Two other titles were considered - one even worse, "This Man is Mine", and one that was better if not exciting, "Cowpoke". Briefly, this is the story of a young ranch worker (Arthur Kennedy) and his new bride (Susan Hayward) trying to save up money to buy a ranch of their own. Faded rodeo star Mitchum crosses their path and changes their lives, showing the young husband Kennedy a shortcut to big money by riding in the rodeo. There's a lot of friction resulting as time goes on, with Kennedy hooked on the easy money and attention, while Hayward fears for his safety and blames Mitchum for driving a wedge between the couple. I won't give away any of the story beyond that.I do want to give a broader review of this movie for the type that it is. I don't think I've ever seen a seriously-made movie which depicts rodeos or bull riding that was not at least fairly compelling, as this one is. Whether it's 'The Lusty Men' or 'Eight Seconds' or 'The Ride', those who ride rodeo put their lives and safety on the line for relatively little pay in most cases. They pursue their sport with an intensity that may be hard to understand for those who live a more ordinary existence. Just as a compulsive gambler gets that little rush every time he scratches off a lottery ticket or pulls the handle on a slot machine, every time the bull or bronc rider nods his head and the chute gate swings open, he has a brief chance at success and a win and the thrill that goes with it - but he has hundreds, maybe thousands of people playing the game along with him. If he has a great ride, the crowd goes wild. If he gets bucked off, or gets hurt - maybe even killed - he has done so trying to please all those people in addition to himself. The complexities of the motivation of the rodeo rider belie what some may feel to be a very simple or even 'dumb' pursuit. It is these motivations which create the opportunity for fascinating characters living lives that follow different rules. They live outside the box, even now as they have for decades, in pursuit of their dreams. That's why 'The Lusty Men' and the other rodeo / bull riding films I've seen have been so good. When you start with characters filled with the 'heart and try' to compete at rodeo, people who are not so bound to logic and common-sense, the storyline possibilities are nearly endless. Things in the world of rodeo have changed since this movie was made. As one other reviewer pointed out, a rodeo rider of the past having to retrieve his winnings at a saloon after having gotten banged up riding that day would be the perfect formula for the start of a drinking problem. Fortunately, they don't get their winnings at a saloon anymore. On the other hand, the 'buckle bunnies' who pursue rodeo riders are still drawn to the lean, lanky, quietly courageous cowboy no matter whether he rode for eight seconds or got bucked off in two. He doesn't need to be a big money winner, because the cowboy's appeal has never been about money. To the contrary - his lack of wealth may be part of his appeal by making him seem more down-to-Earth and approachable, maybe even vulnerable because he is nearly broke. In this movie however, the young cowboy / rising rodeo star does attract the wrong kind of women because he has amassed some money winnings.You don't have to be a fan of rodeo or bull riding to enjoy this movie. While it does revolve around those sports, the real story is what happens to the young couple and the old rodeo star who enters their lives.

I see they had a choice of some other titles here - anything's better than the one they used on TCM on Saturday (10/29/05.) But I loved this movie! Arthur Kennedy has always been one of my favorites and Susan Hayward, who was born on my birthday, is amazing, always. Whew, in this movie, she beats up another chick TWICE! With good reason, of course. I am really glad I never saw this movie before because although Leonard Maltin called the ending "hokey" in his video guide, I liked it so much that it made me cry. Maybe it's a 'girl thing.' Robert Mitchum was incredibly handsome and sexy - if I owned the movie, I just might watch it again TO SEE HIM WALK, whew. I bet he had the girls heated up in the 50s. Sorry I didn't tape it for my own use, then. I feel that this film is an example of why Nicholas Ray has a following. It's a beautiful work of art, and I thank him for it.