| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Steve McQueen | ... | Junior Bonner | |
| Robert Preston | ... | Ace Bonner | |
| Ida Lupino | ... | Elvira Bonner | |
| Ben Johnson | ... | Buck Roan | |
| Joe Don Baker | ... | Curly Bonner | |
| Barbara Leigh | ... | Charmagne | |
| Mary Murphy | ... | Ruth Bonner | |
| Bill McKinney | ... | Red Terwiliger (as William McKinney) | |
| Dub Taylor | ... | Del | |
|
|
Sandra Deel | ... | Nurse Arlis |
| Don 'Red' Barry | ... | Homer Rutledge (as Donald Barry) | |
| Charles H. Gray | ... | Burt (as Charles Gray) | |
|
|
Matthew Peckinpah | ... | Tim Bonner |
|
|
Sundown Spencer | ... | Nick Bonner |
|
|
Rita Garrison | ... | Flashie |
A week with Junior Bonner, a rodeo pro on the wrong side of 40, broke, bruised, and headed into Prescott, his home town, for the annual 4th of July Frontier Days. His dad, Ace, is a dissolute dreamer fixed on finding gold in Australia; his mom is resigned to Ace's roving; his brother Curly is tearing up the countryside to make a million in real estate. Junior just wants to stay on a bucking Brahma for eight seconds, hang out with Ace, find a way to spend time with a beautiful woman whose eyes catch his, and earn enough to get to next week's rodeo. As the old West and its code give way to progress, Junior is lonesome, laconic, and on the road - just where he wants to be. Written by <[email protected]>
I cannot believe this movie is not rated higher. It should be in the Top 250 IMDB movies. I guess most viewers are not really into sociology.
This movie is about telling the tale of a dying breed--the cowboy, and it is about a man who is chasing a disappearing lifestyle.
This movie is about folklore, about the American traditions. I realize that the mass media has wiped out our past; thanks to them we are in a sense, "tabula rasa."
We have forgotten our past. And the media recreates it for us.
Thank goodness for movies like Junior Bonner. They keep the past alive for us. This movie is like an oral storyteller sitting around the fire 10 thousand years ago, telling the tribe the myths of their ancestors.
Long live Junior Bonner!