JUBAL, a trouble-is-simmering 1956 western melodrama directed by Delmer Daves, has soft-spoken drifter ‘Jubal Troop’ sign up for work on a ranch where things are run not so much by the genial owner as past his scheming wife and the sadistic foreman.

The wide-open location atmosphere gives the cast room to drop subtlety and play it with zest. It’s another introspective hero spot for Glenn Ford as the title loner, a refreshing sympathetic departure from villain roles for Ernest Borgnine as the hearty rancher and a passion-bubbling excursion into spiteful slutdom for Valerie French as the vixen wife. Following his brutish ‘Jud’ in Oklahoma!, Rod Steiger attacks another of those totally nasty parts that helped build his career. He ‘Methodically overdoes it, going in for a mule train load’s worth of shouting, panting and sneering: you could use this performance as a template for practice at doing a Steiger impression. Ford’s laid-back observation: “Rod…well, in kindness I think I should say he did a great job with his role. However, the ‘method’ got a little too much for some of us, especially the wranglers…Look, Rod won an Academy Award, didn’t he? And so did Ernie, so whatever Rod was doing in his role for Jubal probably worked for him. He was intense, I’ll tell you that.”

The script by Russell S. Hughes, reworked by director Daves, was adapted from Paul I. Wellman’s 1939 novel “Jubal Troop”, a hefty 560 pages that covered a lot more territory than the slice carved off for the film. All in, saddle up for 101 old school matinee minutes in the outdoors around Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Revenues told out $3,960,000, coming in a leisurely 55th for ’56.  With Felicia Farr (the good girl, and not nearly as much fun as French’s bad one), Charles Bronson, Noah Beery Jr., Basil Ruysdael, John Dierkes, Jack Elam, Robert Burton and Robert Knapp. Ford and Daves would later collaborate on the excellent 3:10 to Yuma and Cowboy.