Junior Bonner
| Junior Bonner | |
|---|---|
A promotional film poster for Junior Bonner.
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| Directed by | Sam Peckinpah |
| Produced by | Joe Wizan |
| Written by | Jeb Rosebrook |
| Starring |
Steve McQueen Robert Preston Ida Lupino Ben Johnson |
| Music by | Jerry Fielding |
| Cinematography | Lucien Ballard |
| Edited by |
Frank Santillo Robert L. Wolfe |
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Production
company |
Solar Productions
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| Distributed by | Cinerama Releasing Corporation (1972, original) MGM (2004 & 2005, DVD) |
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Release date
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Running time
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100 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3.2 million |
| Box office | $2.8 million |
Junior Bonner is a 1972 film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen, Joe Don Baker, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. The film focuses on a veteran rodeo rider as he returns to his hometown of Prescott, Arizona, to participate in an annual rodeo competition and reunite with his brother and estranged parents. Many critics consider it to be the warmest and most gentle of Sam Peckinpah's films.
Junior "JR" Bonner is a rodeo rider who is slightly "over the hill". Junior is first seen taping up his injuries after an unsuccessful ride on an ornery bull named Sunshine.
He returns home to Prescott, Arizona, for the Independence Day parade and rodeo. When he arrives, the Bonner family home is being bulldozed by his younger brother Curly, an entrepreneur and real-estate developer, in order to build a trailer park. Junior's womanizing, good-for-nothing father, Ace, and down-to-earth, long-suffering Elvira, are estranged. (Note: both Preston and Lupino were born in 1918, making them just twelve years older than McQueen.) Ace dreams of emigrating to Australia to rear sheep and mine gold, but he fails to obtain financing from Junior, who is broke, and refuses to ask Curly for it.
After flooring his arrogant brother with a punch, Junior bribes rodeo owner Buck Roan to let him ride Sunshine again, promising him half the prize money. Buck thinks he must be crazy but Junior actually manages to pull it off this time, going the full eight seconds on the bull.
Junior walks into a travel agent's office and buys his father a one-way, first-class ticket to Australia. The film's final shot shows JR leaving his hometown, his successful ride on Sunshine continuing to put off the inevitable end of his career.
The story explores one of Sam Peckinpah's favorite themes - the end of a traditional form of honor and the arrival of modern capitalism on the western frontier. In a memorable scene, Ace and Junior escape from the rodeo parade on Junior's horse, ending up at a deserted railway station where they drink and despair at the state of the world and their indigency. The film has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the mid-2000s because of retrospectives of Sam Peckinpah's work and the screenplay's predictions regarding capitalist development.
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Wikipedia