The Western King Lear is what Edward Dmytryk crafted with this film. Broken Lance drew inspiration from Shakespeare’s King Lear and reimagined Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s House of Strangers as a Western, which provided strong foundations for the story. The cast—Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Katy Jurado, Robert Wagner, and Earl Holliman—along with cinematographer Joseph MacDonald's collaboration with Dmytryk, all suggested that this would be an impressive work. And it is! Dmytryk’s film recounts how the Devereaux family fell apart. Matt Devereaux {Tracy}, a stern pioneer, illegally raids a copper mine after discovering that his smelting operation had polluted the water. He has four sons; three are failures in his eyes, but his youngest, Joe, from his marriage to a Comanche woman {Jurado}, seems free of his own bitterness. However, it's Joe who is arrested and sentenced to three years in jail for the mine raid. Upon his release, he finds that his brothers have driven their mother away and nearly destroyed the family’s holdings, including their father’s legacy. Joe {Wagner} has grievances to address, particularly with his oldest brother, Ben {Widmark}, who is unpleasant. The screenplay by Richard Murphy reworked Philip Yordan's House Of Strangers script, earning Yordan an Academy Award for Best Writing in 1955. It's easy to see why. Murphy and Dmytryk combined several intelligent elements into their film. Beyond the story of vengeance involving a black sheep family member, it also explores racial prejudice, greed, and corruption. The movie is definitely dialogue-heavy; while the copper mine raid provides some excitement, it’s the conversations and how they are structured that make Broken Lance deserving of recognition on any "Adult Western" list. Courtroom scenes and a notable sequence featuring only Tracy and Widmark are worth appreciating for fans of the genre. The performances are generally strong. Tracy is excellent, as is Widmark, while Wagner manages to overcome the challenge of portraying a half-Indian character by bringing emotional honesty and integrity to Joe’s role. Katy Jurado, who received an Oscar nomination for supporting actress, portrays Señora Devereaux with sweetness and subtle sadness in what was essentially a thankless part. The other actors have less impact; Holliman and Hugh O'Brian, as the remaining brothers, feel more like observers than active participants in the family drama. Jean Peters, playing Joe’s love interest Barbara, is an essential character but never feels fully developed. Despite these minor flaws, this is a captivating and beautiful film. With Leigh Harline’s evocative score complementing MacDonald’s stunning Arizona photography {the movie was filmed in Technicolor CinemaScope and sound mixed in 4-Track Stereo}, it's worth seeing on the best available system because it truly deserves to be experienced that way. 8/10

Source on TMDB