Stalwart thesping by a veteran cast and stunning mountain scenery cannot compensate for the predictable script in "Broken Arrow" director Delmar Daves' modest ranching epic "Jubal," with likable Glenn Ford cast as the eponymous character. The story is fairly basic material. A lone cowboy staggers out of the mountains and onto the trail, starved, on foot without a horse, and practically dead. The owner of a sprawling ranch picks him up and brings him onto his property. Good Samaritan rancher Shep (Ernest Borgnine of "Marty") is a genuinely pleasant fellow who takes the cowboy, Jubal Troop (Glenn Ford of "Texas"), in and gives him a job. Meanwhile, one of the ranch owner's hands, Pinky (Rod Steiger of "On the Waterfront") doesn't like Shep's charitable gesture of kindness. He doesn't like it for another reason. Shep's beautiful wife Mae (Valerie French) is a no-good spouse who lusts after Jubal behind her husband's ignorant back. Pinky knows better, too, and does his best to aggravate a potentially nasty predicament. While Shep is hopelessly gracious to his men, overlooking Pinky's antagonism to Jubal, he is a complete fool where women are concerned and doesn't see what his faithless wife is doing to him. Pinky's wrath toward Jubal mounts when Shep gives him the rank of foreman. Meanwhile, some Christian settlers venture across Shep's land and Pinky leads an army of Shep's cowhands and other ranch hands from different ranches to drive these harmless folks out. Jubal intervenes on behalf of the settlers. Predictably, Pinky rides back to the ranch and warns Shep about Jubal's treachery. Initially, Pinky didn't like Jubal because he smelled sheep on him."Jubal" was one of those 'adult-themed' westerns that Hollywood made in the 1950s. The lady of the ranch throws herself at the hero, but he isn't having anything to do with her because he likes her husband. Unfortunately, Daves and scenarist Russell Hughes refrain from developing the roles into three dimensional characters. In other words, nobody changes over time. Every character remains steadfastly the same. Pinky epitomizes evil incarnate when he is not given his way. At one point, Pinky and Jubal opens fire their weapons on each other. As the only lady in this horse opera, Mae doesn't change an iota either. Eventually, Pinky convinces Shep that Jubal and Mae are having an affair under his nose and Shep calls an unarmed Jubal out. The ending leaves something to your imagination with regard to Pinky's comeuppance. Jack Elam and Noah Beery, Jr., co-star.

"Jubal" paints character, conflict and theme with extremely broad, expressionistic strokes.Women, as symbolized by Mae, are very one-dimensional in this 1956 Western starring Glenn Ford, Rod Steiger, Ernest Borgnine, and Charles Bronson. Men, too, seem shaped as if out of the very prairie, mesa, or arroyo, in which they work as cattle men, which apparently precludes much knowledge of how women think, act, and, especially react.What is true about "Jubal" is that a woman in love who is not only neglected but, moreover, treated like a possession and taken for granted, will respond with sorrow, then fury and then betrayal. That sounds like a very sexist statement to make in 2013, but in the world of the mid-1950s, Hollywood has very rigid ways of depicting men, women, and minorities.Shakespeare knew that there is a sort of invisible pecking order in the military, and on the range. Men must trust each other or what they see as order will crumble, disintegrate. A woman alone, unable to run away, unable to fight back on the same level ground as a man, must resort to what used to be called feminine wiles.The fact that even when I graduated from high school in 1963, the top three likely professions for women consisted of (a) teaching (b) nursing and (c) secretarial. To watch "Jubal" now is a very saddening experience.Shakespeare's Iago manufactured jealousy out of circumstantial evidence, and he does so by playing to each victim's weaknesses and their trust, appealing to their irrational fears, and their ignorance of the truth combined with the unknown, upon which Pinky is able to capitalize in this story.There is much straight-line, point-to-point male and female thinking in this story, but Pinky is the glue that makes this ugly jigsaw puzzle materialize. The first clue of that truism is the unthinking labeling and wrath that almost erupts when the cattle men deduce, by fragrance alone, that Jubal is a sheep man, which turns out not to be true, but it demonstrates how dangerous, how deadly, how fatal misunderstanding, false belief can truly become in action.We may never know, but history's patterns teach us, that a demagogue preys upon the gullibility of the innocent, the naive, and the too-trusting.Without the spurs, and the saddles and the range wars over sheep versus cattle, the fact reverberates in this fable that innuendo can cripple and kill. Alfred Lord Tennyson insisted that "A half truth is the blackest of lies."

I caught this on Comcast's list of free movies, and considering the overall quality level of the flicks Comcast offers for free, I wasn't expecting much. However, I watched it after reading the generally positive comments here, and those comments were correct.There are so many westerns that, just by the law of averages, most of them are mediocre, but "Jubal" is an unexpected standout. The plot - a reworking of "Othello" as has been noted - is a disquisition on the themes of jealousy, loyalty, honor, betrayal, and friendship. Those themes have been done ad infinitum in other movies but I think two things stand put in "Jubal." First is the very high quality of the script. The dialogue is spare, straightforward and free of the hackneyed prose so endemic to most westerns. Second is the outstanding level of the acting, which is perhaps not unexpected with the likes of the great (and greatly underrated) Glenn Ford, Rod Steiger, Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson. Another factor that doesn't hurt is the outstanding cinematography of western vistas.A surprising sleeper, not to be missed if you get the chance to see it.

Jubal is directed by Delmer Daves and adapted by Daves and Russell S. Hughes from the Paul Wellman novel, Jubal Troop. It stars Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Charles Bronson, Valerie French & Felicia Farr. David Raksin scores the music and Charles Lawton Jr. is the cinematographer. Out of Columbia Pictures it's a CinemaScope/Technicolor production, and location for the shoot is Jackson Hole, The Grand Tetons, Wyoming, USA.Jubal Troop (Ford) is found exhausted out on the range and given shelter at a nearby ranch owned by Shep Horgan (Borgnine). Shep oversees Jubal's recovery and offers him a job as part of his ranch team. This is met with objection by Shep's mean foreman, Pinky (Steiger), but Shep is undeterred and Jubal goes on to prove his worth in the position. Shep and Jubal get on great, but trouble is brewing because Shep's pretty Canadian wife, Mae (French), has taken quite a shine to Jubal. This further enrages Pinky, and a hornets nest is stirred, spelling trouble for practically everyone.Delmer Daves' (Dark Passage/Broken Arrow) Jubal is often likened to William Shakespeare's Othello, that's something that, whilst being flattering, is best ignored. For Jubal, and its makers, deserve credit in their own right for producing such a tight, tense, adult Western. It's a film that's driven by characters who are caught in a web of jealousy and suppressed emotions, with the underrated Daves bringing some psychological dimensions into the narrative. He's also a director who knows that such a story benefits greatly by not including action and violence just for the sake of upping the tempo. He paces this film to precision, winding up the tension to breaking point, then to unleash all the pent up fury on the viewers, but even then he (correctly) chooses to keep some critical moments off the screen, gaining results far better than if stuff had actually been shown the audience (two shots in the finale are stupendously memorable). This griping human drama is played out in front of magnificent scenery, where Daves and Lawton Jr. (3:10 to Yuma/Comanche Station) utilise the CinemaScope and Technicolor facilities to their maximum potential. Filling the widescreen frame with majestic mountains,vibrant slanted forests and rolling grassy hills. The Grand Tetons location had previously been used in other notable Western movies, such as The Big Trail, The Big Sky and famously for George Stevens' Shane. While post Jubal it served a considerable purpose for Dances with Wolves. All of this grandeur for the eyes is boosted by Raksin's (Laura/Fallen Angel) score, with gentle swirls for the tender Jubal/Naomi thread and rushes for the posse sequences, it's an arrangement very at one with the mood and tempo of the story.The cast list oozes star power, and gets performances to match. Ford is a master at roles calling for underplayed intensity, and that's what he gives Jubal Troop. Keeping the characters cards close to his chest in the beginning, Ford pitches it perfect as the emotionally bottled up drifter. Borgnine, a year after his Oscar win for Marty, is perfect foil to Ford's calmness, he's in turn big and boisterous, often crude, yet under the bluster is a sweet and honest man. And there in the middle of the three men is Steiger, bringing the method. Pinky is brooding, devious and one pulse beat away from being psychotic, but Steiger, with a menacing drawl flowing out of his mouth, is creepily mannered. Steiger and Daves clashed other how to play Pinky, the director wanting something more akin to Ford's serene like role play, but Steiger wanted it played bitter and coiled spring like; the actor getting his way when producer William Fadiman sided with him.Valerie French (Decision at Sundown) looks beautiful in Technicolor, and in spite of an accent problem, does a neat line in how to play a smoldering fuse in a box of fire crackers. Felicia Farr (The Last Wagon) is the polar opposite, religiously comely and virginal, she's a touch underused but the play off with French impacts well in the story. Key support goes to Charles Bronson (The Magnificent Seven) as loyal friend to Jubal, Reb. Played with laid back machismo, it's something of what would become the trademark Bronson performance. Other notables in the support cast are the always value for money Noah Beery Jr. (Wagons West), John Dierkes (The Hanging Tree) and Jack Elam (The Man From Laramie).Damn fine film that's worthy of being sought out by those interested in the best of the 50s slew of Adult Westerns. 8.5/10