Review: Jubal

Rock-solid Delmer Daves (who has made some good movies like “Destination Tokyo” and “The Hanging Tree”) western from 1956 is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Othello. Glenn Ford plays the title stranger who begins work as a cowhand for back-slapping, likeable, but slightly uncouth Ernest Borgnine. Valerie French (not very subtle, not very charismatic) is Borgnine’s unhappy, sexually frustrated Canadian wife who starts paying more attention to Ford than her husband, though Ford does not reciprocate. Rod Steiger is the scornful former top dog among Borgnine’s men, who wants French for himself and catches on that French has a thing for Jubal. The seething and absolutely despicable Steiger tries to make trouble for Jubal, who is completely innocent. Felicia Farr, best known for being Jack Lemmon’s wife, plays a nice girl from a deeply religious family whom Ford gets involved with. Charles Bronson has an early role as a fellow drifter and one of Ford’s few allies. Western pre-requisite Jack Elam plays a minor baddie, in an underwritten part.

 

Ford, Borgnine, and especially Steiger are all immediately perfect in their parts here and they’re the main reason to see the film. Steiger’s a mean, sour agitating bully, and the ‘method’ actor is intense from start to finish. It may not be a subtle performance, but unlike Ms. French, he’s extremely effective. Apparently he drove cast and crew crazy on set (according to star Ford anyway), but given the results it may just have been worth it. Ford is intense too, but it’s a more quiet, brooding intensity as the title character has a rather tortured past. He’s one heck of an underrated actor. He was always a star, but somewhat of a second-tier star. He’s got a kind of decency to him that’s really appealing (and would be even as far down the line as Pa Kent in 1978’s “Superman”). Borgnine steals the early portion of the film through sheer unrefined likeability. He’s a big softie who means well, and doesn’t realise that he’s picked the wrong woman for a wife (Seriously, French’s character is, in her own way, just as villainous as Steiger’s). Insecurity is his character’s other downfall, and thus the guy who won an Oscar for playing likeable lonely lug “Marty” is perfect for the role. I actually think it’s one of Borgnine’s best-ever turns, and that’s saying something. Bronson doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time, but it’s actually one of his better early performances, and quite a different character to what you might expect from him. Felicia Farr is just OK, but nice and sweet enough to fit the bill, I suppose.

 

There’s a couple of brief dead spots, and the conclusion is unfortunately abrupt, but otherwise there’s very, very little to complain about here. This is a good story about what jealousy, envy, insecurity, and lust can do to people, even good people.  Nice photography by Charles Lawton Jr (“Kiss and Tell”, “The Lady From Shanghai”), though a couple of the night scenes are a little too dark for my liking. The screenplay is by Daves and Russell Hughes (“Them!”), from the novel Jubal Troop by Paul I. Wellman (“The Comancheros”), by way of William Shakespeare.

 

Rating: B-