The American west has always seemed to be, at least as portrayed in western movies, a terrible place. This might be purely subjective – I also consider every science fiction film a kind of dystopia, and the world of the modern rom com an extension of high school (which is to say a circle of hell). But I was reminded of this once again while watching Anthony Mann's 1953 film The Naked Spur, one of five westerns Mann made with James Stewart, all of which are considered crucial revisionist or "psychological" westerns. There are only five characters in Mann's film,...