Broken Lance

Broken Lance is a 1954 American Western film directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Sol C. Siegel. The film stars Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Jean Peters, Richard Widmark, and Katy Jurado. Shot in Technicolor and CinemaScope, the film is a remake of House of Strangers (1949) with the Phillip Yordan screenplay (based upon the novel I'll Never Go There Any More by Jerome Weidman), transplanted out west, featuring Tracy in the original Edward G. Robinson role, this time as a cowboy cattle baron rather than an Italian banker in New York City. It has been widely noted that the story bears a strong resemblance to King Lear. Plot Matthew Devereaux (Spencer Tracy) is a ranch owner who has built an enormous ranch and mining empire. He raised his sons to carry on his fierce, hard-working Irish settlement spirit that helped make him a success. However, as a consequence, he's never shown fatherly affection to his three older sons by his late first wife: Ben, Mike, and Denny (played respectively by Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian, and Earl Holliman). He treats these grown men (in their 30s to 40s) little better than hired help. Even though they manage the day-to-day operations of the ranch and other enterprises full time, Matt still retains complete authority, right down to the smallest decisions, angering his eldest son. This resentment leads the three eldest sons to unite against their father. Joe (Robert Wagner) is Matt's biracial son by his second wife (Katy Jurado), a Native American who pretends to be Mexican. The town's people call her "Señora" out of respect for Matt, but not out of respect for her. Matt's power and prestige keeps the discrimination by the townspeople towards Joe to a minimum, so long as Joe, an emerging young adult, is principally interested in riding the range alone, and spending time at his mother's native American reservation and with her people.