"Broken Lance" is an almost scene for scene remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's, "House of Strangers". Lightly based on Shakespeare's "King Lear", it tells the story of a family, where the patriarch is forced to break up his empire, and spread the shares among his children(in this case, his sons). His sons, who feel that they are owed the empire, refuse to help the father in times of trouble.Both "Broken Lance" and "House of Strangers" are led by two powerhouse performances by their leading men. Spencer Tracy in the former, and Edward G. Robinson, the latter."Broken Lance" also had a superb supporting cast. Richard Widmark, Robert Wagner, Jean Peters and E.G. Marshall.The story works well as a western, in that, it enables the movie to have the type of large, sweeping scope and grand story that is "King Lear.Told in flashback(just like House of Strangers), the story is the search for revenge by the son that truly loved his father(Wagner). Being his father's favorite, the other brothers plot to do away with him.While the ending is a little contrived, and again, told the exact same way as "House of Strangers", Edward Dmytryk does an excellent job of moving the story along and adding a good deal of action.*** out of ****

20th Century Fox's BROKEN LANCE ('54) was -alongside "Garden Of Evil - the first western in the then new process of Cinemascope and Stereophonic sound! This was the splendid format which revolutionized picture making and throughout the fifties the studio was the forerunner, and were expert, at producing films in this new medium. Who can forget such memorable classics as "King Of The Khyber Rifles" (' 53), "Beneath The 12 Mile Reef" (' 54), "Untamed" (' 55), "The Last Wagon" (' 56) and "The Bravados" (' 58). All ablaze in that amazing new lifelike widescreen creation!BROKEN LANCE was a western remake of the studio's earlier "House Of Strangers" (' 49) and the change of setting suited the highly charged taut drama quite well! Richly photographed in colour in the new process by the great Joe McDonald it was solidly directed by Edward Dmytryk. Splendidly written and developed by Richard Murphy from Philip Yordan's original screenplay it was well acted by a nicely chosen cast. Spencer Tracy - in one of his rare forays into a western - plays Matthew Devereaux, the irascible autocratic cattle rancher who because of his harsh nature and domineering ways causes great enmity with his four sons. With one son Joe (Robert Wagner) there is a mutual respect but he treats the three others with derision and dissension. This eventually leads the eldest son Ben (Richard Widmark) wanting to take over the ranch. After an altercation - which causes the father to have a stroke - the story culminates in the ailing Matthew riding out after his three errant sons to prevent them from selling off the land and dying in the saddle from the exertion and strain of the pursuit. It is a wonderfully executed intense and powerfully dramatic sequence!Although he dabbled before in the genre and even played a cattle baron seven years earlier in "Sea Of Grass" (' 47) it is nonetheless unusual to see Tracy in a western! But he is excellent here in the role of the domineering patriarch out west and delivers the goods as if westerns were a common thing for him! (two years later he was to play a similar part in MGM's "Tribute To A Bad Man" (' 56) but was replaced by James Cagney at the last minute). The supporting cast were good too! Besides Wagner and Widmark the other brothers were played by Hugh O'Brien and Earl Hollimann. The lovely Jean Peters has the female lead but really has little to do in an under written part! But Katy Jurado gives a nice restrained performance as Tracy's Indian wife and earned an Oscar nomination for her efforts. Besides the stunning Cinemascope/colour Cinematography on locations in southern Arizona the picture also has a stunning score by the ever underrated and little known composer Leigh Harline! Harline was an interesting movie composer! He was born in Utah in 1907. After attending the University of Utah he joined the Utah Radio Orchestra. In Hollywood from the early thirties he went to work for the Disney Studios where he wrote the music for "Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs" and also for "Pinocchio" (' 40) from which came the huge song hit "When You Wish Upon A Star". This tune assured lifelong financial comfort for Harline! He stayed in Hollywood and worked mostly on a free-lance basis. Alfred Newman liked his work and had him score many of Fox's top pictures such as "House Of Bamboo" (' 55), "True Story Of Jesse James" (' 56), "The Enemy Below"(' 57) and "Warlock" (' 59). His music from BROKEN LANCE is probably his best work! The Main Title is a powerfully dramatic and engaging statement for full orchestra! Scored for baying brass and striking bravura strings - with faintly humming female chorus - it is at once thrilling and exhilarating! This theme is used in different guises throughout the picture and creates great impact first as Devereaux and his ranch hands ride across some magnificent Cinemascope landscapes in hot pursuit of some cattle rustlers and then again for the final chase sequence! There is also an Irish melody to point up the main protagonist's Irish background and a gentle love theme for the film's softer moments for scenes with Wagner and Peters. Thankfully this fine score has been preserved on an excellent record album! Harline's last score was his excellent music for "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao" (' 64). He died in 1969!So quite a satisfying movie all round! It perhaps is not, and never will be, regarded as a brilliant western but it will always be remembered as a splendid reworking of the "King Lear" tale in a most pleasing, handsome and dynamic Cinemascope setting!

With both it being based on Shakespeare's King Lear and being a Western remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's tasty film noir, House of Strangers, Broken Lance had fine sources from which to work from. Throw in to the mixer that it stars Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Katy Jurado, Robert Wagner and Earl Holliman, and that Joseph MacDonald was director Edward Dmytryk's cinematographer of choice, well it's all set up to be a highly accomplished piece.And it is!Dmytryk's film tells the story of how the Devereaux family came to implode. Father Matt {Tracy}, is a tough no nonsense pioneer who after finding a copper smelter has polluted his water, illegally raids the copper mine with destructive vengeance. Matt has four sons, his three eldest are a disappointment to him, but his youngest, Joe, from his latest marriage to a Commanche woman {Jurado}, is untainted by his own bitterness. But it's Joe who takes the rap for the copper mine raid and gets sentenced to three years jail. When Joe comes out he finds that his brothers have driven his mother away and all but destroyed the family empire, including his father. Joe {Wagner} has scores to settle, especially with the oldest, and nastiest brother, Ben {Widmark}.The screenplay comes from Richard Murphy, who, reworked Philip Yordan's House Of Strangers screenplay, bagging Yordan the Best Writing Oscar at the 1955 Academy Awards in the process. And it's not hard to see why. Murphy and Dmytryk have fused together a number of intelligent strands in their picture. Not merely a tale of vengeance that dallies with black sheep of the family like thematics, it also serves up racial prejudice issues, and those of greed and corruption. It's for sure what one would term a talky piece, tho the copper mine raid itself is a pulse raiser, but it's with the talk and how it's put together that makes Broken Lance worthy of its place on any "Adult Western" list. For its court room sequences and a memorable scene involving Tracy and Widmark alone it deserves praise from the genre faithful.Acting wise there are very few disappointments. Tracy is terrific, as is Widmark, while the youthful Wagner gets away with the obvious problem of him playing a half Indian, by bringing an emotionally honest integrity to the role of Joe. Katy Jurado, who was Oscar nominated for supporting actress, is sweet and showing deft sadness in the thankless role of wife and mother, Señora Devereaux. The itches are with the others, thru no fault of their own really. Both Holliman and Hugh O'Brian as the other two brothers are practically observers in proceedings, both men never really getting to add some weight into the family drama. Jean Peters as Joe's love interest, Barbara, is an important character in the story, yet she's never fully formed. Minor problems aside tho, this is an engrossing and gorgeous picture. So with Leigh Harline's lyrical score complimenting MacDonald's sumptuous Arizona photography {the film was shot in Technicolor CinemaScope and sound mixed in 4-Track Stereo} try and see this on the best system you possibly can, because it's worth it. 8/10

Spencer Tracy certainly wasn't looking to win popularity contests with this role. He's a tyrannical old cattle baron with a streak of integrity that nevertheless commands respect. Mainly, what he gets from the three older sons is fear along with a dash of awe. What he gets from his youngest son, Joe, (Wagner) is some understanding based on Tracy's daring marriage to the boy's mother, an Indian, making Wagner a half-breed and a half-brother to the other three sons.These complexities are important because they drive much of the drama. The movie was hailed at the time for dealing tangentially, at least, with a racial topic. Perhaps Tracy punishes his older full-blooded white sons because they don't fully accept their Indian step-mother, or maybe favors his youngest son because he does. But then, Tracy has treated Ben (Widmark) badly for years, suggesting a deeper kind of character flaw. Anyway, there are a number of interesting ambiguities in the Phil Yordan screenplay. And when the showdown finally comes, it's really Dad's bad side embodied in Ben that Joe must go against.At this point in his career, Wagner was considered little more than a light-weight pretty boy. However, his performance here, I think, is both strong and substantial despite the boyish good looks. Still and all, I can't help feeling that Widmark is a shade too old for Ben's role, being only 15 years younger than Tracy. Nonetheless, that role could only be filled by an accomplished actor like Widmark, while O'Brien and Holliman really have little to do other than stand around and fill the slot of the two middle sons. Jurado got an award for her performance as the mother. But truth be told, the performance is rather wooden, along with those clumsy poetic tropes like, "I grieve for you, my husband", that Hollywood long saddled ethnic-types with. Nonetheless, there's enough crackling good melodrama to keep an audience interested. The scenes are well staged except for the huge state capitol building rather poorly matted into an ordinary Western street-- the contrast looking like an NFL lineman in a room full of of first-graders. Note too that even though the movie is filmed in wide-screen Cinemascope the locations are not that scenic. This is not, I think, a particularly picturesque Western. My guess is that the producers thought the story strong enough that it didn't need eye-catching landscape to keep up audience interest. Anyway, the movie remains an A-grade Western with a good story and a powerful Tracy performance.