Popular reviews

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  Review by Will Sloan ★★★★★

  A beautiful movie about having dreams, having pride, being a man, being a wife, being a failure, not being sure what success is, and more. Contains some of the greyest greys ever captured on celluloid. Godard was right - the cinema is Nicholas Ray.

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★½ 2

  Macho men and their death drive. Sort like one made a Hawks movie and replaced all the near juvenile stoicism with an acknowledgement of men’s damnation.

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  Review by Ethan Vestby ★★★★★

  It's about Mitchum's broken dreams then it's about him seeing himself in a younger guy then it's about them kind of falling in love then it's about the wife being jealous then it's about driving down the highway at night then it's about the wife being jealous again but maybe in love with Mitchum then it's about the bromance again but maybe it's really all about the bull smashing its face into the camera, ya know?

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★★ 44

  Nicholas Ray makes Western machismo into melodrama in “The Lusty Men.”

  As in “Rebel Without a Cause” and “In a Lonely Place,” the director here uses high emotion and theatricality in service of dismantling the stiff upper lip of masculine expectation. 

  Robert Mitchum plays Jeff McCloud, a rodeo star (of sorts) who meets the bad end of a bull and finds himself at the finish of his paydirt days. Instead of hopping back into the ring himself, he mentors greenhorn Wes Merrit (Arthur Kennedy) to the stature of rodeo hero. 

  Mitchum learned how to perform a sizeable amount of rodeo tricks himself in preparation for the role. One of the key tactics - freezing when thrown from a bull -…

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 5

  Action! - The Postwar Hollywood 3: A Raybel With A Cinematic Cause

  Putting aside the fact that this movie has one of the most misleading titles in cinema history (like there was not too much lust, this is by no means a spicy comedy or film noir, and the Spanish title, La Mujer Codiciada, makes less sense), this was still a really great “Western” by Nicholas Ray.

  Besides a few brief portions on Yellowstone, I've never really been interested in rodeos as a whole, but this nearly two-hour film managed to capture and hold my attention throughout. This is largely due to the performances, especially those of Robert Mitchum and Arthur Kennedy. Kennedy excels in the role of Wes, a…

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  Review by K. Austin Collins

  "Cinema is [Robert Mitchum's chin dimple]." - Jean-Luc Godard

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  Review by nadine x ★★★★½ 1

  those men, they're just so... *clenches fist* lusty

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  Review by Cahiers Du Cinéma

  Jacques Rivette: 'On Imagination'

  ('De I'invention', Cahiers du Cinema 27, October 1953)

  Without any doubt, the most constant privilege of the masters is that of seeing everything, including the most simple mistakes, turn out to their advantage rather than diminishing their stature. If you are now surprised to see me give the benefit of this law to Nicholas Ray's latest film it means you are ill-prepared to appreciate a work which is disconcerting and asks for, not indulgence, but a little love. Far from wishing to excuse it, you must love this lack of artifice, this very pleasing indifference to decors, plasticity, evenness of light, the rightness of a supporting role, and you must recognize even in the clumsiness of…

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  Review by Richard Chandler ★★★★½ 19

  “Fella just likes to know if he can still do it.”

  Co-written by hardboiled novelist Horace McCoy and future Bonanza creator David Dortort, Nicholas Ray’s outstanding Western The Lusty Men is a classic tale of hubris rewarded…for a while. 

  Champion bronco buster cum incapacitated saddle tramp Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum) limps to his childhood home on a whim, leading to a chance encounter with young ranch hand Wes Merrill (Arthur Kennedy) who—along with his dedicated wife Louise (Susan Hayward)—is slowly saving his wages to purchase the place. Recognizing Jeff straightaway, Wes secures him employment at a nearby ranch with an eye toward getting some covert rodeo training. Soon enough the two men form a partnership and the trio takes to…

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  Review by migblah ★★★★★

  «This film is not a Western. This film is really a film about people who want a home of their own. That was the great American search at the time this film was made. I had gone through all the social rolls in Washington that asked for that kind of data -"What is your principal drive in life?"- and over 90 per cent was, "To own a house of my own." And that's what is all about» (Nicholas Ray)

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  Review by Cormac 👑 ★★★★★ 13

  THE LUSTY MEN is the road(eo) movie where your soul has long stopped driving and someone else has inadvertently taken up the wheel.

  Where the fight between the old stomping ground and your own young mind is to see who can stand in one place the longest. Stick your spurs in the sand of who you used to be. While your body moves as fast as the changing times.

  Forever chasing the buzz of feeling alive, ten seconds at a time. Is it worth a lifetime of failure to face up to who you really are? For fear of seeing a ghost looking right back. Another shadow of times, long gone by.

  I was looking for something I thought I’d…

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  Review by Justine Smith ★★★★½

  What an unusual film. Creeps up in unexpected ways. The dialogue really snaps against a backdrop of very physical work and images. Was surprised that it was the final act where Mitchum's romantic intentions come to the forefront that the film really clicked with me. Hayward is one of the actresses who can really match Mitchum's soft-faced, broad-shouldered brutalism with the same intensity. The backdrop of bucking beasts is such a twisted backbone of restrained passion. Love party images with the camera on the ground, bringing us intimately into the chaos of celebrating another escape from death. There is also magic to the way that Ray is able to make open spaces feel claustrophobic and closed rooms feel expansive. Dreams might be able to transform physical realities, but they can't protect you from a bull.