Junior Bonner (1972)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Sam Peckinpah

Writer:

Jeb Rosebrook (written by)

Release Date:

2 August 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Western

Tagline:

"Tell 'em Junior sent you"

Plot:

Ace Bonner returns to Arizona several years after he abandoned his family, Junior Bonner is a wild young man. Against the typical rodeo championship, family drama erupts.

Plot Keywords:

Rodeo | Arizona | Horse Jumping Fence | American Flag | Champion

Cast

Steve McQueen	...	Junior 'JR' Bonner
Robert Preston	...	Ace Bonner
Ida Lupino	...	Elvira Bonner
Ben Johnson	...	Buck Roan
Joe Don Baker	...	Curly Bonner
Barbara Leigh	...	Charmagne
Mary Murphy	...	Ruth Bonner
Bill McKinney	...	Red Terwiliger (as William McKinney)
Dub Taylor	...	Del
Sandra Deel	...	Nurse Arlis
Don 'Red' Barry	...	Homer Rutledge (as Donald Barry)
Charles H. Gray	...	Burt (as Charles Gray)
Matthew Peckinpah	...	Tim Bonner
Sundown Spencer	...	Nick Bonner
Rita Garrison	...	Flashie

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Palace Bar - 120 S. Montezuma Street, Prescott, Arizona, USA

Company:

American Broadcasting Company (ABC)

Trivia:

Director Cameo: [Sam Peckinpah]for one fleeting shot, passing through the Palace Bar in the film. He appears immediately after Barbara Leigh's friend asks for "Three double bourbons" just before Steve McQueen asks her to dance.

Goofs:

Continuity: The wet spot on junior's mom's shirt after she comes into the house from the garden.

Quotes:

Curly Bonner: Junior, you're my brother, and I guess I love you. Well, we're family. I don't care what you do. You can sell one lot or a hundred lots. I'm just tryin' to keep us together.
Junior 'JR' Bonner: I gotta go down my own road.
Curly Bonner: What road? I mean, I'm workin' on my first million, and you're still workin' on eight seconds.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Death Proof (2007)

Soundtrack:

Rodeo Man

Nostalgic snapshot of Prescott

I first heard of this film on a trip to Prescott for the 1973 rodeo. Three days of hard liquor, sex and wild livestock (I had sat out Woodstock in an NYC jail and had to make do) Of course the film was all the buzz but the highlight of '73 was an ill-advised visit by a chapter of Hell's Angels who didn't know the locals carried side arms. They had a most humiliating exit. The former territorial capitol, a moribund Prescott sat between the exhausted gold fields in the mountains and the ranches suffering from poor beef prices out on the high prairie. The Palace Bar was the queen of a raucous grouping of saloons on Whiskey Row. A place to rub elbows with crazed prospectors and working cowboys. The town's only nod to modernity was a Western Auto Parts store and Sears Catalog outlet...I don't think they had a McDonalds.

Today the faceless crowd savors its victory. The ranchers cried "uncle" and gave in to the developers or joined them. Whiskey Row in name only the bars have become boutiques and the Palace is a salad bar. The city groans in gridlock under the traffic of her sprawling suburbs. Street widening has obliterated the familiar or bypassed now inaccessable charms. Strip malls and the usual fast food joints line the approaches for miles and miles. A flood of California retirees have raised the costs and codes to push Jo Don Baker's trailers to rural ghettos ranging thirty and forty miles out. Phoenicians have taken the old gold camps for summer homes and condos. The once unbroken mountain views and sweep of prairie are dappled blurs of asphalt shingle, stucco and neon. A straggling herd of antelope (a protected species) are under edict of removal in one housing developement and if Junior Bonner comes back to town he better be driving an Escalade.

The film is a poignant story proven true. I haven't the heart to revisit the rodeo.