Susan Hayward

Robert Mitchum

Arthur Kennedy

Arthur Hunnicutt

Frank Faylen

Walter Coy

Carol Nugent

Maria Hart

Lorna Thayer

Burt Mustin

Karen Randle

Jimmie Dodd

Eleanor Todd

Robert Bray

Lane Chandler

Dennis Moore

Marshall Reed

Chuck Roberson

Glenn Strange

Chili Williams

Sheb Wooley

Emile Avery

Barbara Blaine

Hazel Boyne

Buck Bucko

Roy Bucko

Bob Burrows

Mary Jane Carey

Sam Flint

Bob Folkerson

Clem Fuller

Slim Gaut

Roy Glenn

James Gonzalez

Chick Hannan

Don Happy

Riley Hill

Mike Lally

Frank Matts

Billy McCoy

John Mitchum

Fox O'Callahan

Joe Phillips

Bob Reeves

Rocky Shahan

George Sherwood

Bert Spencer

Jack Tornek

Ralph Volkie

Dan White

Sally Yarnell

Nicholas Ray

Roy Webb

Claude Stanush

Lee Garmes

Horace McCoy

David Dortort

Larry Germain

Clem Portman

Michael Woulfe

Tom Gries

Phil Brigandi

Edward Killy

Jerry Wald

Carol Henry

Alfred Hayes

Andrew Solt

James Van Horn

Richard Farnsworth

Leroy Johnson

Fred Carson

Mel Berns

C. Bakaleinikoff

Alfred Herman

Albert S. D'Agostino

Jack Mills

Darrell Silvera

Ralph Dawson

Drama

Western

The Lusty Men

Wald/Krasna Productions

RKO Radio Pictures

United States of America

There never was a bronc that couldn't be rode, there never a cowboy that couldn't be throwed. Guys like me last forever.

The Lusty Men is directed by Nicholas Ray and co-written by Horace McCoy	and David Dortort from a suggested story by Claude Stanush. It stars Robert Mitchum, Susan Hayward, Arthur Kennedy, Arthur Hunnicutt, Frank Faylen and Carol Nugent. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Lee Garmes.

Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud (Mitchum) agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt (Kennedy) against the wishes of Merritt's wife, Louise (Hayward), who fears the dangers of this rough sport. All that and affairs of the heart start to become just as rough.

Nicholas Ray picks up a love triangle core and sets it to the backdrop of the ferocious world of Rodeo. Pic is in turn touching and realistic, bringing strong human drama and splicing it with real life rodeo action - with the bull sequences quite something to behold. Ace cinematographer Garmes ("Shanghai Express/Nightmare Alley") photographs the rodeo sequences with a beauty that still manages to exude the harsh hum-drum life of the main protagonists out on the circuit.

In reality we are following three characters on the road to destiny, actually lyrically so, this is no soap opera tale infused with action sequences. In fact location filming went out on the road to film real Rodeos (with genuine Rodeo stars strutting their stuff). This is three characters in search of an exit, a meaning in life, but naturally harsh lessons are to be learned before the day of reckoning can come.

Super perfs, direction and photography, if it wasn't for the irritatingly repetitious use of the same music each time a "contestant" leapt out the stalls, then it would be a point higher. 8/10

English

1952 THE LUSTY MEN - Trailer - Robert Mitchum, Susan Hayward