This film had quite the stellar cast. Spencer Tracy plays the patriarch of his family. The sons are played by Robert Wagner, Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian and Earl Holliman. While the actors playing the sons are pretty impressive, as I watched the film I thought that the casting was odd. The bottom line is that Robert Wagner was just way too pretty to be playing the toughest of the four sons. Seeing him in a western was difficult enough to believe and I think he is a fine actor--just outside his range here. I really don't know why Twentieth-Century Fox cast him in the role. Now I am not saying he was bad--he just didn't look the part and seemed better suited to romantic roles.

The film is a remake of the wonderful Edward G. Robinson film "House of Strangers"--which itself seems to be a retelling of the story of Joseph and his brothers from the book of Genesis. Both films are about a very controlling, stubborn and sometimes cruel patriarch who bullies his sons. Here, Spencer Tracy is a cattle baron who is one of the most powerful men in the state. While the viewer naturally dislikes him (he plays a jerk who treats his sons with contempt) in the essential struggle in the film, he is in the right...for once. Apparently he has sold some mining rights on his property BUT when the miners use arsenic to mine for gold (a common but insanely deadly practice in the 19th century) it kills off some of Tracy's cattle. The miners don't seem to care so Tracy takes the law into his own hands--after all HE is always right.

Eventually, Tracy's actions land him in court and it looks pretty bad for him. After all, you can't shoot at people, beat people up or threaten to hang people whenever you like! His most loyal son, Wagner, decides the best thing to do to help is to perjure himself on the witness stand. However, the other brothers obviously hate their father and Wagner is only their half-brother, so they refuse to perjure themselves as well--leaving Wagner to go to prison and Tracy to lose his case. The bottom line is that the three sons were just waiting to see Tracy fall--like sharks waiting around as another shark got sick and showed weakness.

Overall, a wonderful story. It's gritty, well-acted and involving. The only problem is that although it's all very good, the original story was perhaps even better--plus it was original. Because of this, the film needs to lose a point. It's well worth seeing but I say first see the original.

Broken Lance is a western remake of All My Sons which unfortunately does not live up to the original. A pity because the talented cast certainly worked hard in this film.

This is the second time that Spencer Tracy played a cattle baron, the first being in Sea of Grass. But he was far more sympathetic there than he is in Broken Lance. In both films he has family troubles and he's wrong in his solution in both.

He's got four sons, three by a wife who died two years after Tracy settled in the west and started building his cattle empire. Tracy remarries, this time to an Indian princess and has another son.

Maybe because his mother's still around, he favors his youngest son and just treats the others like garbage for no real reason. Maybe he just enjoys pitting Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian, and Earl Holliman against Robert Wagner for his own sadistic amusement. He also employs her relations as hands on the ranch so he has to keep good relations with the tribe, so he can't treat the youngest like the others.

But whatever reason you kind of understand where the other three are coming from. Even when Widmark later tells Tracy how he didn't enjoy having an Indian squaw for a step mom, the racism in the remark still doesn't tip it back to Tracy and Wagner. Wagner WAS his little pet as Widmark pointed out to him.

Plot begins with Wagner being released from prison after taking a fall for the father. As he decides his next move, the film unfolds in flashback.

A great cast here supports the Deveraux men. Katy Jurado as Wagner's mom is impressive in a thankless role, she loves her husband, but you can see she realizes the mess he's made of the family. Eduard Franz is a good as Robert Wagner's Indian relation and eventual life saver.

Think Bonanza and how much better Ben Cartright dealt with the issue of half siblings.

If you want to see Spencer Tracy in a Western, you'll have to take what you get here in this story of a land baron who alienates his sons but expects their undying loyalty at the same time. Don't get me wrong, Tracy's good here in his role, but the story is a bit convoluted with the renegade sons, and relies on youngest half-brother Joe (Robert Wagner) to take the fall for his father's going off half cocked at a copper mine and destroying a good portion of the company's assets. I couldn't help but feel a little more work could have gone into the story line, and yet it won a 1955 Oscar for Best Writing. Go figure.

Just going by the cast list, this should have been something special. Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian and Earl Holliman portray the older three brothers, born of Matt Devereaux's (Tracy) first wife, but their characters were never really developed to any significant degree. All we get is that Ben (Widmark) is the strong willed oldest brother, and Denny is the whiny, sniveling sibling who has a penchant for being disagreeable. Quite honestly, I don't know why O'Brian was even needed in the story, did he even say anything throughout the picture?

Actually, it seemed like Katy Jurado was the force that kept the momentum of the picture on track as Matt's second wife and mother of Joe. Funny, but apparently she didn't have her own name in the story, she just went by Senora Devereaux. The more I see Jurado in these kinds of roles, the more I seem to like her. I guess I'd have to say I enjoyed her best in 1952's "High Noon", a movie that's just about on everyone's favorite Westerns list.

Told in an extended flashback manner, the story eventually catches itself back up in real time to find Matt Devereaux attempting to wield his authority one last time to prevent his sons from selling off parts of his empire to fund other interests. Senora Devereaux uses her influence with son Joe to stop him from seeking revenge on his older brothers, though there is a neat fight between Ben and Joe near the top of a rocky outcrop. My vote for best performance goes to the two stuntmen who filled in at that point; the way they rolled down the side of that mountain looked like it would have been mighty painful.