It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

When I first saw Rod Steiger, in the role of 'Pinky' and heard his negative comments about the half dead man(Jubal) that boss Shep had brought home, I knew he had the be the main 'heavy'. I distinctly remember him as the tough that Curly(Gordon McRae) had to deal with in the previous years megahit "Oklahoma". He subsequently played other toughs, including Al Capone and Mussolini. This is a story about a group of men and women who serendipitously come together, most of whom feel lonely or in the wrong place or hitched to the wrong person, and are trying to find the right place and/or person for them. It's ultimately, an adaptation of Shakespeare's classic tragedy "Othello" which was reworked by novelist Paul Wellman, back in the '30s, in a western setting, in "Jubal Troop". Wellman wrote quite a few western novels, as well as histories, including "The Comancheros", later made into a John Wayne-starring film.We have two clearcut villains among the 6 :Pinky: Shep's de facto, but unofficial, foreman before Jubal arrives, and Shep's much younger wife, Mae. This whole sorry tale was precipitated by the wrongheaded marriage of Mae and Shep: two desirable people on their own merits, but totally wrong for each other. Mae evidently was a much sought after Calgary woman(claiming 23 marriage proposals!), who finds life on this scenic, but isolated, ranch boring, evidently much missing city life, and other women, and disappointed that Step's ranch home isn't more luxurious and that he isn't as rich as he claimed. She's also not really in love with Shep, despite his friendly, easy going, manner, considering him too old and plain-looking for her taste in a lover. She clearly also misses the romantic attention of a bevy of men, thus has had a few sexual encounters with the aggressive Pinky, whom she clearly actually considers beneath her. In contrast, she takes an immediate liking to Jubal, perhaps in part because he acts standoffish toward her, and she sees that he's quite adept at cowboy skills. Shep, a middle-aged man, evidently regards Mae as mostly a 'trophy wife', rather than a potential mother of a ranch family(although that might change). He seems oblivious to her often cool response to his attempts to show affection in public, and has no clue about her escapades with Pinky nor interest in Jubal.Unfortunately, Pinky detects the desire of Mae for Jubal as the apparent explanation for her recent rebuffs of his advances when Shep isn't around. Thus, he plants in Shep's mind the suspicion that Mae and Jubal are having an affair. Very unfortunately for everyone, Mae confirms this suspicion, to spite Jubal for his rebuff of her advances, he says out of loyalty to his friend. Combined with Pinky's subsequent brutal beating of Mae for again resisting his advances, soon 3 of the 6 will be dead(well, Pinky's is only assumed).Meanwhile , Jubal has struck up a friendship with Naomi: a romantically naïve woman tied to a small group of a religious sect, traveling westward toward 'The Promised Land': apparently imagined somewhere in Idaho. Jubal and Naomi have an intuitive trust in each other, and give each other a brief rundown of their lives. Unfortunately, Naomi has been promised by her father to marry one of this group, whom she doesn't like. Thus, it seems her relationship with Jubal is destined to soon end. However..... Charles Bronson serves the plot primarily as Jubal's only real male friend , besides Shep, on this ranch. They were both loner drifting cowboys and, in the final scene, he rides into the sunset along with Jubal and Naoimi. Twice, he saves Jubal's life by throwing him a firearm: when Shep, and later Pinky, are about to shoot Jubal. Jubal outguns both.One of Shep's prize possessions is his player piano, which dates this story to the late 1800s, at earliest. He has Mae and Jubal dance to Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer", not aware of Mae's relevant dream.Naomi(Felicia Farr) is characterized as quite shy and minimally animated, in marked contrast to the older Mae. Both are good looking. Jubal seems to have had minimal dealings with women, perhaps partly because of his rejection by his mother. Hence, they will perhaps make a good match. Jubal probably was meant to be a considerably younger man than Ford's 40 years. In fact, Ford was slightly older than bug-eyed Borgnine(Shep), who was characterized as middle-aged.Shep is perhaps too quick to make up his mind about new acquaintances. He lucked out with Jubal, who could have turned out to be a bad man. But, he wasn't so lucky in his apparent snap decision on a wife. The ending is a tragedy for all the principals, except perhaps for Jubal and Naomi, who are shown riding onward to find a new 'Promised Land'. We might wonder what is going to become of Shep's ranch, now that he and Mae are dead? Why didn't Jubal stay to keep the ranch going until its future owner or disposition was decided? Perhaps he didn't want to be reminded of the recent tragedies. Perhaps more important, Naomi needed to lose her association with the group she was in, in order to marry Jubal,. In any case, it seems tragic that they decided they had to flee this very favorable place for a ranch. I've only seen a few Glenn Ford westerns. I rate "Cowboy" as better than this too contrived screen play. However, the cinematography in both is excellent.

Jubal is directed by Delmer Daves and adapted by Daves and Russell S. Hughes from the Paul Wellman novel, Jubal Troop. It stars Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Charles Bronson, Valerie French & Felicia Farr. David Raksin scores the music and Charles Lawton Jr. is the cinematographer. Out of Columbia Pictures it's a CinemaScope/Technicolor production, and location for the shoot is Jackson Hole, The Grand Tetons, Wyoming, USA.Jubal Troop (Ford) is found exhausted out on the range and given shelter at a nearby ranch owned by Shep Horgan (Borgnine). Shep oversees Jubal's recovery and offers him a job as part of his ranch team. This is met with objection by Shep's mean foreman, Pinky (Steiger), but Shep is undeterred and Jubal goes on to prove his worth in the position. Shep and Jubal get on great, but trouble is brewing because Shep's pretty Canadian wife, Mae (French), has taken quite a shine to Jubal. This further enrages Pinky, and a hornets nest is stirred, spelling trouble for practically everyone.Delmer Daves' (Dark Passage/Broken Arrow) Jubal is often likened to William Shakespeare's Othello, that's something that, whilst being flattering, is best ignored. For Jubal, and its makers, deserve credit in their own right for producing such a tight, tense, adult Western. It's a film that's driven by characters who are caught in a web of jealousy and suppressed emotions, with the underrated Daves bringing some psychological dimensions into the narrative. He's also a director who knows that such a story benefits greatly by not including action and violence just for the sake of upping the tempo. He paces this film to precision, winding up the tension to breaking point, then to unleash all the pent up fury on the viewers, but even then he (correctly) chooses to keep some critical moments off the screen, gaining results far better than if stuff had actually been shown the audience (two shots in the finale are stupendously memorable). This griping human drama is played out in front of magnificent scenery, where Daves and Lawton Jr. (3:10 to Yuma/Comanche Station) utilise the CinemaScope and Technicolor facilities to their maximum potential. Filling the widescreen frame with majestic mountains,vibrant slanted forests and rolling grassy hills. The Grand Tetons location had previously been used in other notable Western movies, such as The Big Trail, The Big Sky and famously for George Stevens' Shane. While post Jubal it served a considerable purpose for Dances with Wolves. All of this grandeur for the eyes is boosted by Raksin's (Laura/Fallen Angel) score, with gentle swirls for the tender Jubal/Naomi thread and rushes for the posse sequences, it's an arrangement very at one with the mood and tempo of the story.The cast list oozes star power, and gets performances to match. Ford is a master at roles calling for underplayed intensity, and that's what he gives Jubal Troop. Keeping the characters cards close to his chest in the beginning, Ford pitches it perfect as the emotionally bottled up drifter. Borgnine, a year after his Oscar win for Marty, is perfect foil to Ford's calmness, he's in turn big and boisterous, often crude, yet under the bluster is a sweet and honest man. And there in the middle of the three men is Steiger, bringing the method. Pinky is brooding, devious and one pulse beat away from being psychotic, but Steiger, with a menacing drawl flowing out of his mouth, is creepily mannered. Steiger and Daves clashed other how to play Pinky, the director wanting something more akin to Ford's serene like role play, but Steiger wanted it played bitter and coiled spring like; the actor getting his way when producer William Fadiman sided with him.Valerie French (Decision at Sundown) looks beautiful in Technicolor, and in spite of an accent problem, does a neat line in how to play a smoldering fuse in a box of fire crackers. Felicia Farr (The Last Wagon) is the polar opposite, religiously comely and virginal, she's a touch underused but the play off with French impacts well in the story. Key support goes to Charles Bronson (The Magnificent Seven) as loyal friend to Jubal, Reb. Played with laid back machismo, it's something of what would become the trademark Bronson performance. Other notables in the support cast are the always value for money Noah Beery Jr. (Wagons West), John Dierkes (The Hanging Tree) and Jack Elam (The Man From Laramie).Damn fine film that's worthy of being sought out by those interested in the best of the 50s slew of Adult Westerns. 8.5/10

A stolid Western offering minor interest because it focuses more on love and jealousy than action and violence, Jubal still feels like a long day in the saddle. The acting is generally according to type and nothing more: Glenn Ford is laconic if not emotionally stunted, with eyes that never display any emotion; Ernest Borgnine is better, a bit tamped down from his usual volatile self, though he stills careens from best-buddy to big threat; Valerie French is terrible as the bad Canadian (!) hussy but the role is mostly a device to animate Rod Steiger's jealous Pinky. He's the best character in the movie, but still one dimensional with no arc: bad to the bone from beginning till the end. Ford's eponymous Jubal character actually has a backstory out of Sergio Leone (a mother who wanted him to drown) but he reveals it in an unmotivated scene with Felicia Farr's young Mormon. (As always, the real fault lies with the screenwriter.) More interesting to watch than the characters is the beautiful Jackson Hole scenery, a welcome change from the dusty California backdrop of most oaters.

Nice cast -- Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Felicia Farr, Charles Bronson, and Glen Ford. And good location, too -- Grand Tetons in Wyoming.Most of it is wasted on a mediocre Western script. Borgnine runs a ten-thousand acre ranch with half a dozen hands of varying degrees of normality and he has a wife who doesn't love him. Borgnine picks up the half-frozen drifter, Ford in the eponymous role, brings him back to the bunk house and gives him a job. The other hands accept Ford well enough, even when he's promoted over them to foreman.But there's always something. Steiger is the heavy here. He kinda despises Ford right away. "Smells like sheep dip to me." Furthermore, Borgnine's hot-blooded wife, Valerie French, takes a shine to the recalcitrant Ford and she has previously been available, behind Borgnine's back, to Steiger, known as Pinkie. You can tell right off that she's hot blooded because she has a French accent. So Steiger has real reasons to dislike Ford. He's pretty jealous. The wife kinda sidles up, like to Glen Ford and asks him to go out and get some firewood for her. Steiger tells her, "Time was, when you needed wood, you'd come to old Pinkie." Now it seems she's getting her wood from somebody else.Things get complicated after that. Steiger starts playing Iago. Borgnine is a shrewd, but good-natured slob and we all hate it when he gets his. And, well, Valerie French may be hitched up in some underwear that's a little too lacy, but we hate it too when Steiger beats her to death. We don't mind it so much when the fat, sneering, lying, sweating, rotten, perfidious, treacherous, foul-mouthed, fomenter of discord Steiger gets hung up from a snatch block.The whole thing is watchable -- it's not a bad movie, and Glenn Ford gives one of his better performances -- but it generates a feeling of deja vu. Borgnine, like most of the other characters, is pretty much one dimensional and the idea of the sloppy, outgoing husband of the younger wife is a familiar role. I see Edward G. Robinson and Anthony Quinn and Paul Douglas in similar roles but don't want to bother looking them up. Steiger has no redeeming features whatever. (Borgnine and Steiger both had recently won academy awards for truly original performances.) Valerie French has the most complex part, but we've seen the frustrated younger wife of the rich old man before."Shane" used the same location, Jackson Hole, but used it better. Wide angle lenses made the Tetons LOOM over everything in the foreground. Here, they're just jagged cerulean lumps on the horizon instead of snow-veined mammoths. Somebody call Albert Bierstadt, fast.If you like Westerns, this one ought to be satisfying enough if you can overcome the sense of familiarity with half the things on the screen.