Junior Bonner
- Steve McQueen: Junior Bonner
- Robert Preston: Ace Bonner
- Ida Lupino: Elvira Bonner
- Joe Don Baker: Curly Bonner
- Ben Johnson: Buck Roan
- Barbara Leigh: Charmagne
- Mary Murphy: Ruth Bonner
- Bill McKinney: Wheel Terwilliger
- Dub Taylor: Del
Junior Bonner is an American film drama with elements of Western director Sam Peckinpah from the year 1971.
Action
Junior Bonner is a rodeo rider who has his glory days behind him. His last use on a stubborn bull has earned him some injury. Bonner drives home to Arizona to participate in the parade and at the rodeo for the Fourth of July.
Once home, he sees that his parents' house was leveled. Causes this has his younger brother Curly, a real estate speculator who wants to build new houses at this point. His father Ace, a good for nothing and womanizer, and his down to earth and ailing mother Elvira have alienated themselves.
Aces desire is to emigrate to Australia to work as a sheep shearer or in a gold mine. He tried to borrow the money from Junior. Junior offers the Rodeo Manager Buck Roan, so he can ride the bull Sunshine again. For Buck should receive half of the prize money. Junior managed to endure the required eight seconds on the bull. He goes to a travel agency and bought his father a one-way first-class ticket to Australia.
Background
The film was shot in the U.S. state of Arizona. An anecdote, there are over Ida Lupino relationship with Peckinpah. She worked in 1957 for the Mr. Adams and Eve Comedy Series and saw Peckinpah, who lived in a shack behind her property. You got him work as a scriptwriter for the series. The role of the mother is Peckinpah's thanks to Lupino.
Reviews
Critics were divided on this film. The filmdienst about this movie: "A psychological well- drawn, cultural pessimism, scenically something more advisable dry film full of sadness and melancholy. "
Nicolai Bühnemann of filmzentrale.com criticized primarily the predictability of the " Rodeofilmchens ". He prides also relativize the black and white painting. This "saves Peckinpah 's film from the omnipresent danger of drowning in nostalgia Cowboy and Wild West romance. The film is thus not a pure escapism, like the lifestyle of its main characters, but a serious study of interpersonal conflict in situations of transition and the question of the identity of the people in the absorbing everything, digesting and (filtered) again retiring consumer society ".