Silliphant sure bit off more than he could chew with this melodramatic story, investigating the Loca Subculture of the Week in the form of rodeo. Set in Mesquite, Texas, it's the springboard for strong performances by Audrey Totter, Albert Salmi and as a surprisingly effective villain for a change: Ben Johnson. However, the content is unsavory and beyond condescending.
In fact, I was soon struck that I was watching not human drama, but rather distorted melodrama right out of Tod Browning's horror classic "Freaks". We have the close-knit rodeo culture, with M & M outsiders, who impact what's going on there, but not convincingly. Milner narrates the show as one long flashback in a melancholy way, contradicting the 100% phony "upbeat" climax Silliphant has tacked on to the pathetic story.
Salmi represents the overwhelming theme of humiliation, a once-top dog rodeo star who has a stump for a hand after a rodeo accident and now makes his living as a clown. He thinks he's taking on all the watchers' pain and suffering, almost a Christ complex, whlle Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens are rodeo riders who spend all their three time pranking, goading and humiliating him.
To their sadism is added that of the onlookers, who are laughing at Salmi's antics as a clown in performance one minute and delighting in watching him get beat up by the pranksters the next. Only Mahari comes to his rescue and provides the show's low-point with an impassioned monologue near the end trying to punch up Salmi's self-esteem. Totter is terrific wallowing in her unending grief, reiving the death of her husband Al, her partner as headliners in an equestrian act, now suicidally drowning herself in drink.
Rodeo has been used as a metaphor in movies, especially the spate rodeo-themed films like "Junior Bonner" and "The Honkers" shot one decade after this show, but rarely exploited so clumsily as Silliphant did this time around.