Episode 21: “The Naked Spur” with Scout Tafoya
A podcast about the great movies.
We’re back with our latest episode of Guide for the Film Fanatic! In each episode, Jason Bailey and Mike Hull invite a guest from the world of film (including filmmakers, authors, critics, actors, and more) to select one of the 1600+ “must-see movies” collected in Danny Peary’s seminal 1986 book, Guide for the Film Fanatic. Bailey, Hull, and their guests deep dive on each film, discussing its history, themes, style, performances, initial reception, and legacy, taking a fresh look at some of the most beloved titles in cinema history.
Author, critic, and filmmaker Scout Tafoya’s most recent book is The Black Book: An Anthony Mann Reader, and he joins us to discuss one of Mann’s best-regarded pictures, the James Stewart Western The Naked Spur. It’s a spirited discussion!
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Downcast, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve partnered up with One Heat Minute Productions on this show, so we’ve migrating it over to their feed; subscribe now if you haven’t already.
We’re also putting our new episodes up on YouTube! Watch the show on our YouTube channel, @guideforthefilmfanatic, for visual accompaniment and bonus stuff and who knows what else:
The Naked Spur is available for digital rental or purchase, or you can pick it up on Blu-ray from Warner Archive. You can watch the trailer here. You can read the New York Times review here, Manny Farber’s review for the Nation here, and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Chicago Reader review here. And you can hear the 1953 episode of A Very Good Year (with guest Sheila O’Malley) that Mike mentions here.
You can buy The Black Book: An Anthony Mann Reader here. You can also buy his book But God Made Him a Poet: Watching John Ford in the 21st Century here, and his Cinemaphagy: Cinema of Flesh Eaten, Corrupted, and Entombed: On the Films and Form of Tobe Hooper here. You can subscribe to his Patreon here, and follow him on Bluesky here and on Letterboxd here.
If you’d like to check out the YouTube page for Mike’s other podcast, “Black Diplomats,” it’s here. And Jason’s book Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend is OUT NOW, and you can order it from MZS Press, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your hardbacks, ebooks, and/or audiobooks. OR you can pre-order the paperback (out April 14, 2026) here.
Last but not least, if you’d like to make a little donation to support us and the show, you can do that at Ko-fi!