Interesting Rodeo Movie from Early 50's

[Mike Ellis]

Last night I watched a horse opera I had never seen before, it was called "The Lusty Men" and starred Robert Mitchum. The acting isn't the best, but the neat thing was the movie was made around 1952 and it has loads of actual footage of some of the big rodeos from that time.



The movie follows a cowboy and his wife on the circuit, they move from rodeo to rodeo in an old woodie wagon and camping trailer. If you are into RVs, quite a bit of shooting was done around and inside the trailer parks so it was interesting to see the old rigs.



The rodeo footage was great, if you like horse operas this one is worth a look. And here I thought I had seen every old cowboy movie ever made

 

[SOOT]

sounds interesting... where do i get a copy?

 

[Mike Ellis]

I've never seen a copy of it anywhere, the other night was the first time I had ever heard of it. I saw it on one of the DirecTV free movie channels, it was either Turner Classic Movies, AMC, or the Fox one.



Might be able to find a copy by searching for Robert Mitchum movies... .

 

[Mike Ellis]

Here's a link to a review of the movie I found on Internet, old Mitchum sounds like he would have been fun to hit the clubs with



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http://www.einsiders.com/reviews/videorisks/lusty.php



Check out these excerpts:



... ... Robert Mitchum was well-known for his ‘indifference’ about acting and filmmaking. ‘What page are we on and what’s my mark?’ and of course, my favourite Mitchum quote: ‘People say I have an interesting walk, but I’m just trying to hold in my gut. ’



..... THE LUSTY MEN is a great film. Interestingly, the parties involved knew it even before it was released. Mitchum, who normally couldn’t give a rip about his finished films (‘They don’t pay me to see ‘em’) actually asked to see some of the film before it was completed. Ray obliged and showed him two-thirds of the movie. Mitchum apparently left walking ten feet high, he was so proud. In typical macho man fashion, they went to a bar to celebrate. Ray later recalled, as he crawled home hours later, that his last memory of Mitchum that evening was of him regaling a couple of drunk FBI agents. Mitchum then proceeded to borrow one of the agent’s gun and started firing at the dirty dishes while the kitchen staff ‘got the heck out of Dodge’.



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(Notice obligatory Dodge reference in last sentence )