Junior Bonner is a broke, bruised rodeo rider who returns to his home town Prescott, Arizona, for the Independence Day parade and rodeo and to reconcile with the family he hasn’t seen for years. He is shocked to see that his family is breaking apart and the family home is being demolished by his younger brother Curly who has become a heartless real estate tycoon, selling sections of his parent’s land for quick money
His father Ace is a dissolute dreamer who dreams of emigrating to Australia to rear sheep and mine gold and his long-suffering mother is resigned to her husband’s wandering.
Trying to find a way to regain his self-respect, Junior Bonner is determined to mount and ride an unrideable bull. at the town’s Fourth of July Rodeo. He hopes to stay on the bull for eight seconds, and earn enough to get to next week’s rodeo.
This time he manages to stay mounted. So, he buys his father a first-class ticket to Australia and leaves his hometown, continuing to put off the inevitable end of his career.
I remember seeing that film, not a really a happy film. But it was well acted and quite a different role for Steve McQueen.
I think in the seventies anything unhappy was thought good.
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The film was really good, and a bit unusual, for that time
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It was memorable, they didn’t like his brother’s real estate business, as it seemed to be mercenary and soulless.
More to life than money and work.
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🙂
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devo dire che sono rimasto abbastanza sorpreso di trovare questo post su Junior Bonner, anche perché si tratta di un film abbastanza dimenticato, una delle opere minori di Sam Peckinpah…
in ogni caso, pur essendo un Peckinpah minore è un film più che discreto, con il regista che continuava nella sua opera di rappresentazione del crepuscolo del far west dipingendo questa volta un western contemporaneo…
e poi un grande Steve McQueen…
ciao 😉
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L’ho ricordato perché, nel corso delle mie lezioni all’Università per la Terza Età del mio paese, ne ho parlato, dopo aver presentato la canzone “Ridin’ The Rodeo”
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Steve McQueen…lo adoro.
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Anch’io!
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