The Naked Spur

The Naked Spur is a 1953 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, and Millard Mitchell. Written by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom, the film is about a bounty hunter who tries to bring a murderer to justice, and is forced to accept the help of two strangers who are less than trustworthy.[2] The original music score was composed by Bronisław Kaper and the cinematography was by William C. Mellor. The Naked Spur was filmed on location in Durango and the San Juan Mountains in Colorado and in Lone Pine, California.[3] The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay—a rare honor for a Western.[4] This was the third Western film collaboration between Anthony Mann and James Stewart. In 1997, The Naked Spur was added to the United States National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2021, The Naked Spur was released on Blu-ray in the North American region by Warner Bros. in their Archive Collection. The disc is supplemented by an audio commentary by Peter Bogdanovich, intercut with selections from an audio interview with Mann.