This is probably my favorite Kirk Douglas western. Although it has plenty of action this is not just another action western. Rather it deals with the implacable transition of the west from open range available to all to individually-controlled patches of range that are fenced off with barbed wire. Dempsey Rae (Douglas' character) loves open range and keeps drifting north to avoid the barbed wire which destroys it. Finally, however, he realizes that the small ranchers must fence off the range to protect themselves from the massive herds of a greedy rancher and her ruthless foreman and helps string and protect the wire that he hates so thoroughly. I love this under-rated western.
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Schryer18 November 1998
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AlsExGal24 January 2023This excellent 50's western from Universal Pictures and director King Vidor stars Kirk Douglas as Dempsey Rae, a wandering cowhand in old west Wyoming. He and recently-acquired friend Jeff (William Campbell) find good work on a large cattle ranch, but new owner Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain) complicates things, bringing in so many new head of cattle that the other, smaller ranchers will be forced out. Those ranchers have no choice but to start stringing up barbwire fences to save some grazing land for their own herds, which sets off a range war.
I liked this western despite the familiar story line, mainly due to the offbeat characters and good direction by Vidor. Douglas in particular assays a complicated man, a rowdy, seemingly fun-loving roughneck who is also capable of deadly violence at a moment's notice. His character Dempsey is not a heroic man, instead driven by personal demons that may lead to self-destruction or a sort of redemption. William Campbell is good as the young kid learning the ropes, while Jeanne Crain plays an alpha female not afraid to use her sexuality to get what she wants. And few actors of the time made better western villains than Richard Boone. -
Man Without A Star is directed by King Vidor and adapted by Borden Chase & D. D. Beauchamp from the Dee Linford novel. It stars Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor, William Campbell & Richard Boone. Photographed by Russell Metty in Technicolor around the Thousand Oaks area in California, with the title song warbled by Frankie Laine.
Dempsey Rae (Douglas) is easy going and a lover of life, so much so he has no qualms about befriending young hot head Jeff Jimson (Campbell). The pair, after a scare with the law, amble into town and find work at a ranch owned by the mysterious Reed Bowman. Who after finally showing up turns out to be a lady (Crain), with very ambitious plans. As sexual tensions start to run high, so do tempers, as the boys find themselves in the middle of a range war.
It's all very conventional stuff in the grand scheme of range war Western things, but none the less it manages to stay well above average in spite of a tricky first quarter. For the fist part Vidor and Douglas seem to be playing the film for laughs, with the actor mugging for all he is worth. Add in the wet behind the ears performance of Campbell and one wonders if this is going to be a spoof. But once the lads land in town and the girls show up (Trevor classy, Crain smouldering), the film shifts in gear and starts to get edgy with Vidor proving to have paced it wisely. The thematics of era and lifestyle changes, here signified by barbed wire, are well written into the plot. While interesting camera angles and biting photography keep the mood sexually skew whiff. Boone lifts proceedings with another fine villain performance, and Jay C. Flippen in support is as solid as he almost always was. 7/10 -
Terrific stuff! Kirk Douglas is a whiskey-sluggin' man's man who drifts into a Wyoming cattle town after taking young, hot-tempered William Campbell under his wing; they get jobs on cattle baroness Jeanne Crain's ranch, but she's fixin' to muscle in on her rancher-neighbors's land (for the grass) until her neighbor puts up a barbed-wire fence--something Douglas has a violent aversion to. Obviously a quality package, what with King Vidor directing and Douglas at the peak of his rough 'n tumble charms; his paternal relationship with Campbell suits him, as does tough-lady Crain as a possible love-interest. Screenwriters Borden Chase and D.D. Beauchamp get this outdoor yarn off to a great start, and it just keeps going from there. Strong cast includes Richard Boone as the villain, an uncredited Jack Elam as a killer, and Claire Trevor, wonderful as a bar hostess. Douglas swaggers, shoots, bites, plays the banjo and sings! It's one of his very best films. *** from ****
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ma-cortes22 January 2017A cowboy is hired as a foreman for a powerful landowner , but he then helps ranchers to stop the egoistic cattle owner from taking over their lands . As he , subsequently , changes sides and will fight against her , as he helps mistreated settlers who put barbwire to protect their herd . The cowboy fighting for justice will tame his vital code he lives by and supporting other neighboring cattlemen who are harassed by her .
This is a moving western dealing with the ordinary conflict between freedom and the need for order and settlements . The picture regards interesting issues such as the economical abuses by powerful owners including violence , and the sexual resources that the beautiful land lady , gorgeous Jeanne Crain , uses to get her purports . Nice and feisty acting by the great Kirk Douglas as the sympathetic as well as impulsive gunfighter . Being one of the first movies that Kirk Douglas made through his own production company , Bryna Productions . Support cast is pretty good , such as : Claire Trevor , Richard Boone , Jay C. Flippen , Jack Elam , Paul Birch , George Wallace , Mara Corday , Roy Barcroft and special mention for William Campbell as a stubborn young gunfighter . Colorful and brilliant cinematography in Technicolor by Russell Metty , being filmed on location in Conejo Valley , Thousand Oaks , Janss Conejo Ranch , California , and Grand Canyon , Arizona . Besides , a moving , stirring musical score by two uncredited composers , Hans J. Salter and Herman Stein .
The motion picture , based on a screenplay by the Western expert Borden Chase , was compellingly directed by King Vidor and lavishly produced by Aaron Rosenberg who financed a lot of westerns for Anthony Man/James Stewart . Although he and Kirk had strong problems , as Douglas and Vidor had arguments , and the latter left the shooting and was fired . However , King shows some his peculiar visual style . In addition , the picture went on to become a box office hit . Vidor directed other good westerns as ¨Duel in the sun¨ , ¨Northwest passage¨, ¨Billy the Kid¨ , and ¨Texas Rangers¨ . And made several classic movies as ¨War and peace¨ , ¨Comrade X¨ , ¨Stella Dallas¨ , ¨Fountainhead¨ , ¨Our daily bread¨ , ¨The citadel¨ , ¨The crowd¨ , ¨Big parade¨ , among others . -
claudio_carvalho31 May 2009While traveling clandestine in a train, the drifter cowboy Dempsey Rae (Kirk Douglas) befriends the naive youngster Jeff "Texas" Jimson (William Campbell) and helps him when he is arrested by mistake in a train station. Dempsey Is hired by the foreman Strap Davis (Jay C. Flippen) to work in the ranch owned by the greedy Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain), who brings civilized habits from the East, like having a bathroom inside the house. When the owners of minor ranches use barbed wire fence in the open grass to protect some land for their cattle in the winter, Reed hires a gang of troublemakers leaded by Steve Miles (Richard Boone) to work in her ranch and tries to seduce Dempsey to convince him to help her. But Dempsey decide to help the ranchers against the gunmen and Reed.
"Man Without a Star" is a flawed but entertaining western. Kirk Douglas performs a nice cowboy that "adopts" a youngster to be the substituted for his brother that was killed in a dispute of land; hates barbed wire fences that he associates to the cause of the death of his brother; and is very successful with women. However, despite telling that barbed wire comes together with fights and killings, his character is incoherent when he defends the ranchers that are installing barbed wire fences. Jeanne Crain is amazingly seductive and sexy with her beauty, and her manipulative character is strong but totally forgotten in the end of the story. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "Homem Sem Rumo" ("Drifter") -
rick_730 August 2007A stunning, one-of-a-kind allegorical Western, with Kirk Douglas sensational as the tortured ranch hand who sees the fencing off of the West as the death knell of his freedom. He falls in with naive, impressionable William Campbell a younger brother substitute and the pair get work on the Triangle ranch. When wealthy scruple-vacuum Jeanne Crain turns up to make a quick buck off the land, Douglas splits, setting in chain a series of events that lead to murder and the symbolic destruction of Campbell's innocence. Then, with barbed-wire spreading like a rash across the green lands, Douglas wakes from a two-week drunk at Claire Trevor's bar to strap on his six-shooter... Nostalgic, thoughtful, intelligent and funny: a prototype 'Monte Walsh', and a remarkable film. It's shot like a dream too, by the ever interesting Vidor. Incidentally, the star that Douglas is without is not a Sheriff's star, but a star in the heavens he can follow.
(3.5 out of 4) -
JamesHitchcock4 February 2012Range wars- disputes over grazing or water rights which frequently escalated into violence- were a popular subject for Westerns; well-known examples include George Stevens' "Shane", William Wyler's "The Big Country", Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" and, more recently, Kevin Costner's "Open Range". "Man Without a Star" is another on the same theme. Like Costner's film it deals with the conflict between supporters of the "Law of the Open Range", meaning free access to water and grass for everyone, and the "barbed wire men" who used the new form of enclosure to fence off their land and to deny access to the free-range cattlemen.
As the title song makes clear, a "man without a star" is one without a definite aim in life. The title character is Dempsey Rae, a wandering cowboy and passionate believer in the "Law of the Open Range". Dempsey loathes barbed wire, partly because of the injuries it can inflict on cattle, horses and people, partly because it can lead to conflict and partly because he sees the unfenced range as a symbol of the freedom of the Old West. He has left his native Texas because too much of the land there has been fenced off and moved further north and west in search of the still-open spaces.
Together with a naive greenhorn named Jeff Jimson, Dempsey finds employment working for a ranch owner named Reed Bowman. Despite the masculine-sounding name, Reed turns out to be a beautiful young woman, who shares Dempsey's opinions about barbed wire and the open range. Now at this point you are probably thinking you know how the movie is going to end. Dempsey and Reed will not only team up to see off the villainous "barbed wire men" but will also fall in love and all will end happily in a peal of wedding bells.
Only things don't quite work out as one might expect. The plot line of "Man without a Star" has some similarities with that of "The Big Country" from three years later. In both films the main character (Kirk Douglas here, Gregory Peck in the other film) becomes drawn into a range war between two groups of ranchers. In both films the moral boundaries initially seem clear-cut, but as matters progress those boundaries become blurred, it becomes more and more difficult to decide who are the heroes and who the villains, and the hero must decide where his loyalties lie.
Here it is Reed who, in strict legal terms, has right on her side. The land across which her cattle roam is Government property, and therefore open range which no individual has the right to fence off. In moral terms, things are rather different. Reed is ruthlessly exploiting the open range system by bringing onto the land huge numbers of cattle, more than it can support, with a view to making a quick profit. Her neighbours are therefore compelled to fence off areas of land, even though this is strictly illegal, in order to prevent the grazing from becoming exhausted and to protect their own long-term interests. For all his hatred of wire, Dempsey reluctantly finds himself forced to side with these neighbours, especially when Reed's unscrupulous foreman Steve Miles starts using violence to enforce her claims. (Interestingly, Major Terrill, the equivalent character to Reed in "The Big Country", also employs a foreman named Steve. Was that coincidence or a deliberate reference to the earlier film?)
This is not one of Douglas's great films, certainly not when compared with something like "Champion", or "Lust for Life", "Spartacus" or "Paths of Glory". I was, however, intrigued by the comments of the reviewer who stated that Douglas could "go from zero to 120 in intensity", as this seems to sum up perfectly his performance as Dempsey, the nonchalant, happy-go-lucky wanderer who is capable of passionate intensity where matters of honour or principle are at stake. Jeanne Crain is also good as Reed, looking far more attractive here as a redhead than she was as a brunette in another film from the same year, "Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes". Claire Trevor gets to play yet another "tart with a heart", a role of the sort in which she seemed to specialise after "Stagecoach".
I would not rate "Man without a Star" quite as highly as "The Big Country", a film with a more epic feel, a greater depth of characterisation, some stunning photography and what is probably Peck's greatest performance apart from "To Kill a Mockingbird". It is, however, a very watchable Western and, like many of the best Westerns, an interesting exploration of moral issues. 7/10 -
classicsoncall28 March 2007Consistently shown these days on AMC, I managed to catch "Man Without A Star" this morning. Without knowing anything about the story, one might think it had something to do about a lawman without a badge, but here the title is used figuratively, and makes sense when cowpoke Dempsey Rae (Kirk Douglas) teaches his sidekick, Texas Jeff (William Campbell), on finding his way by following an evening star. In that regard, the 'man without a star' in the story would have been the direction-less Jeff Jimson, as Dempsey Rae always knew where he was going, even if conflicted about it.
Douglas seems to be having a genuinely good time here, strutting his stuff on banjo much like he did in his film from a year earlier, "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". Seeing it on TV, I didn't have the opportunity to pause and rewind, but it looked like Douglas finished playing his first song about a half click before the music stopped. I can still give him credit for his singing voice though.
The story itself is a fairly typical open range tale that turns deadly once barb wire enters the picture - "When wire comes in, there's fightin' and killin'." A little more thought could have gone into developing Dempsey's stand on the issue; at first we're convinced he's dead against it, then he's putting up a fence in defiance of former boss Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain). By the end of the story, he's heading into a further fence-less West, leaving behind Bowman, Texas Kid, and Madame Idonee (Claire Trevor). In hindsight, I would like to have seen more of Trevor in the story, maybe brawling it out with Bowman the way Dempsey and hell raiser Steve Miles ( Richard Boone) did, wouldn't that have been something?
I liked director King Vidor's subtle humorous bits in the story, notably the running gag about a bathroom 'in the house', and Kirk Douglas combing his hair with the help of a goldfish bowl. And say, have you ever seen the Kirk Douglas dimple more pronounced than it is here? -
Nazi_Fighter_David17 September 2000Kirk Douglas is perfectly cast as Dempsey Rae, the happy wanderer cowboy, expert in guns and horses... Rae rides the open range of the Old West with an eye for the ladies and a fancy way with six-shooters...
The theme of the film is the gradual disappearance of freedom as the Wild West settles down to business and puts up barbed wire to mark the lines of investment... Dempsey Rae is a happy wanderer, content to move further and further west to escape the fences... He meets up with a naive farm-boy "Texas" (William Campbell) who yearns to be a man of action and almost as inept... In Dempsey "Texas" finds the right tutor...
The two team up and get themselves a job working for a beautiful ranch owner, Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain), who turns out to be as unscrupulous as she is attractive... Reed is a 'cattle queen' who rides down the fences of her neighbors carrying the action to its absolute limit in order to prosper and make money...
Dempsey is happy to work for the lady for $30 a month and even happier to make love to her but he draws the line at laying his life for her in range wars... He quits the crooked beauty and drifts into the nearby town, to renew his acquaintance with Idonee (Claire Trevor), a madam with the proverbial heart of gold...
The likable Dempsey is rocked out of his contentment by his successor at the Bowment Ranch, a brute named Steve Miles (Richard Boone) who feels he has to defeat every man in sight, especially when motivated by his glamorous boss...
"Man Without a Star" is a mighty satisfactory entertaining Western, once its premise is established... William Campbell helps Douglas make it so... The two performances are sympathetic, with Campbell looking to Douglas for leadership...
Douglas comes out as a likable star when he announces his presence by throwing his 'good looking' saddle on a window; he is graceful when he combs his hair with water from a goldfish bowl; and he is charming when he plays the banjo and sings a gaily ballad called: "And the Moon Grew Brighter and Brighter."
Jack Elam is cast as the leering, treacherous gunslinger trying to knife Douglas...
Director King Vidor had long established his ability with action sequences and pictorial scope in films like "Northwest Passage," and "Duel in the Sun," and "Man Without a Star" has a full measure of Vidor directed bar room fights, stampedes and chases...
With a lot of color, humor and action Vidor's motion picture is a traditional cattle range movie distinguished by its sheer energy and forceful visual style... The film traces some sex interest between Douglas and Crain, centering on a bathtub 'inside' the house... -
KyleFurr27 October 2005This is a better western then King Vidor's Duel In The Sun and just as good as some of Kirk Douglas's westerns. Douglas's westerns were always better when he worked with a better director like Howard Hawks on The Big Sky and Joseph Mankiewicz on There Was a Crooked Man. Douglas also had another western come out the same year as this one called The Indian Fighter but this one was much better. Douglas is a drifter leaving Texas and heading out west and winds up becoming a mentor to William Campbell. Claire Trevor runs a brothel and is friends with Douglas and he winds up getting a job working for Jay C. Flippen. Jeanne Crain turns out to be the real owner and brings in some hired guns like Richard Boone. It's a pretty good western and one of Douglas's best.
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bkoganbing9 December 2004Man Without a Star is not ranked as one of Kirk Douglas's great films, but it's a personal favorite of mine and a tour de force for this player.
I don't think any actor in screen history could ever go from zero to 120 in intensity as Kirk Douglas. His character Dempsey Rae in this film is a free footloose cowpoke with charm to spare. When provoked he changes like lightning and he's a man not to be trifled with. Kirk Douglas could do this better than any other actor.
Douglas gets good support here from western regulars like Jay C. Flippen, Eddy Waller, Roy Barcroft. Claire Trevor, although she's played more heart of gold floozies than anyone else in cinema history is never bad. Jeanne Crain as the boss bad gal did well being cast against type.
William Campbell was famous for two things, a role in the original Star Trek series as a Klingon Captain named Koloff and the fact he was married once to Judith Exner who also was linked to President Kennedy and Sam Giancana. He's pretty good in this however as Douglas's sidekick/protégé who turns on him for a while. And Richard Boone never gave a bad performance in his life and doesn't do so here as the foreman Jeanne Crain hires to run roughshod over the smaller ranchers.
Western fans and Kirk Douglas fans will love this. -
telegonus14 August 2001Director King Vidor had seen better days by the time he came to make Man Without a Star in 1955. It's a surprisingly routine film both for Vidor and star Kirk Douglas. The story of a freewheeling cowboy who gets more than he bargained for when he gets involved with a rancher has existential undertones that make it stand apart from the typical oater of its time, but not far enough. Kirk Douglas is, as usual, energetic in the lead, but was never a credible cowboy; and while he's well cast, his modern personality and style of acting continually obtrude, and destroy what small chance this modest film had of becoming the sleeper it was intended to be.
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simonqbb18 October 2021Your enjoyment of "Man Without a Star" may very well depend to a large degree on your feelings about Kirk Douglas's over-the-top performance. For me, it was just a little too much of Kirk Douglas being Kirk Douglas: he's all physicality and coiled energy, tight-wasted, barrel-chested, (dimple-chinned, natch), lusty brawler in this one. Nobody pulled this off quite like Douglas, so I may in fact be underestimating what he brought to this movie, but... whenever there's the hint of something like grandeur or poetry, for instance (say, in the direction and/or cinematography), here comes Douglas barreling across the screen. (I should add that I've very much enjoyed other Douglas performances. Vincente Minelli's Vincent Van Gogh biopic "Lust for Life" comes to mind, for instance, which I thought marshaled Douglas's seemingly boundless energy in precisely the right direction; and I remember liking him quite a lot in another, later western, "Last Train from Gun Hill.") Likewise, there are moments of broad humor which I found slightly tiresome, for instance, the running joke about the bathroom in the house. I also thought Claire Trevor was nearly wasted in this movie: though her role was more than a cameo, and she played a part in the film's climax, her role was strangely underdeveloped, a mere tool in Douglas's cowpoke Dempsey Rae's story. That's unfortunate, because Trevor is a fine actress and a compelling screen presence, and I thought her character might have been one of the more interesting in the movie had it been developed a little more, even if it just highlighted her jealousy of Dempsey's fascination with Jeanne Crain's Reed Bowman, the new ranch owner with dollar signs in her eyes. As it is, the story has Dempsey sort of caught between his lust for Reed and his loyalty to his conscience and Wyoming's other ranchers, mostly upright men simply trying to survive and make a living herding cattle on the range. There's a young buck in tow (William Campbell as Jeff Jimson, or Tex), which allows for a number of mentoring scenes (some of which, frankly, just play as an excuse for Douglas to play Western movie star via sharp-shooting, gun twirling, etc.). I guess my main complaint was that there were hints of something else, something more mature: scenes in the boarding house, for instance, reminded me of scenes from "Of Mice and Men" (the novel as well as different movie versions), but here the stye was all Hollywood and very little realism. Overall, I would hardly say that "Man Without a Star" is without its pleasures: it's nicely directed and shot, with colorful Technicolor cinematography, and there's some fine work among the supporting players (Jay C. Flippen and Richard Boone are of note). But I mostly only recommend this for classic movie Western fans who like Kirk Douglas at his broadest. (The Movie Czar 10/17/21)
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dbdumonteil4 October 2009Jeanne Crain is one of those women who comes off even better in jeans than she does when she's wearing a dress.Coming after "Ruby Gentry" ,which gave Jennifer Jones one of her most intense parts and depicted a mad passion à la "duel in the sun" ,"the man without a star" is a male story though .Kirk Douglas carries the movie upon his strong shoulders and he succeeds in giving a subtle performance ,in a portrayal that shows every side of his fragility and despair ,under the guise of good humor and unlimited self- confidence:the scene in which he shows his chest packs a real wallop;the things we learn about his family tends to indicate he is not the man we thought he was .His pairing with Texas displays echoes of Howard Hawks' "the big sky" (1952):the users who have seen that movie will notice the similarities between the final scenes.The "father"/"son" relationship is common in westerns (see also Ray's "run for cover").
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bsmith555221 December 2018Although "Man Without a Star" was directed by the legendary King Vidor, it is nonetheless a routine (albeit a good one) western of the kind that Universal turned out in the 1950s. This one has the advantage of having Kirk Douglas as the star.
Douglas plays Dempsey Rae (Where DO they get these names?) a drifter on the rails to Wyoming from Kansas City. Also riding the freight is the young Jeff Jimson (William Campbell) who is caught by the brutal brakeman (Lee Roberts) who clubs him. Dempsey comes to the rescue and the young man hero worships Dempsey. The brakeman is murdered on the train by hobo Jack Elam and young Jim is accused by the sheriff's trigger happy deputy (George Wallace) of the murder. Sheriff Olsen (Roy Barcroft) accepts Dempsey's explanation and the two carry on into town.
Dempsey meets up with an old flame Idonee (Claire Trevor) who is now running a saloon. Looking for work, Dempsey and Jim sign on with the Triangle ranch with foreman Strap Davis (Jay C. Flippen). The triangle is the largest ranch in the area but has got along with the smaller ranchers led by Cassidy (Eddy Waller) and Toliva (Paul Birch)
The Triangle has been bought by an eastern buyer who turns out to be female Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain). She has her own ideas for the ranch. She plans to fill the free range with cattle until the feed is gone, sell out and take in the profits while destroying the smaller ranches in the process. She winds up firing Davis and pursues Dempsey as his replacement as foreman.
Dempsey at first, is warm to the idea but relents when he learns that the smaller ranchers are planning to fence off their section meant for winter feed with barbed wire. Dempsey has a past hatred of barbed wire. Intending to leave the territory, Dempsey decides to help the smaller ranchers. In the meantime a large herd of cattle arrives from Texas with Steve Miles (Richard Boone) at the helm. Bowman hires Miles and his men to drive out the small ranchers.
Jim has remained behind at the Triangle as a protector of Bowman. In the saloon, Jim guns down a wrangler (Myron Healey) who was pestering Bowman. Bowman send Miles and his men to stampede a herd of cattle through the rancher's barbed wire and.......................................................................
Douglas plays Dempsey at first as a happy go lucky drifter and then a serious minded opponent of the lady rancher. I though that Claire Trevor would have been more appropriate as the lady rancher. Jeanne Crain although she does her best, simply didn't have the hard edge that Trevor could have brought to the part. I always liked Richard Boone as a villain even though he was an accomplished actor. He had that meanness. Watch for Myrna Hansen as Tess Cassidy who has her eyes on Jim, Sheb Wooley as Latigo a ranch hand and Mara Corday as Moccasin Mary, a saloon girl.
And oh yes, Douglas gets to strum a banjo to a couple of rousing saloon songs. -
Freedom06028611 October 2017This one is very similar to many other westerns, lacking anything unique.
The sequence of events is very predictable - you know how it is going to end in the middle of the movie. The story is very simple and the personalities are vapid (the characters are very similar to those in many other westerns).
Kirk Douglas performs very well as he always did. But most of the rest of the cast is rather wooden, with the exception of Richard Boone who comes across as convincingly menacing. -
intelearts9 September 2008Before Eastwood, before Spaghetti, Westerns came in two flavors: the first was Gary Cooper; serious gunslingers and death, and the other was John Wayne; tales of manliness and Western values.
Douglas here is definitely in the latter vein. The plot of the cattle ranchers and the greenhorn is very familiar and this is definitely a character driven piece.
It is full of energy, charm, and fun. It is not however a great film; I never felt involved, but I was entertained.
It is too lightweight to be anything other than a good Western as seen through Hollywood's eyes. Fine and dandy for a while, but really instantly forgettable afterward.
If you like Westerns then this is definitely worth viewing - just don't expect it to do anything than entertain. -
mark.waltz12 February 2020This Western drama at first seems to be more about slice of life moments on the open range until Kirk Douglas's big moment where he reveals his reason for hating barbed wire. Douglas is first seen stowing away on a freight train, mentoring the sweetly dim bulb William Campbell, and sticking around with Campbell when they get jobs working for lady rancher Jeanne Crain, an early version of "The Big Valley's" Victoria Barkley. She's disgusted by him at first but when she witnesses him beating up the man she's invited to dinner (seemingly to just rile him), offers him a job as foreman. He thanks her with a steamy kiss, but it's going to be a tempestuous working relationship that often ends with a slap.
Certainly, Douglas's reason for hating barbed wire is justified, but as the wild west becomes less open and more ranchers arrive, something is going to be needed to mark property lines. Maybe not the strongest story, but one with a point to make of how time was marching on and nothing could be done to stop what those there first objected to.
Two strong supporting performances come from Jay C. Flippen as Crain's business manager and the Oscar winning Claire Trevor as the local tavern proprietor who obviously has a side business going on involving her saloon girls. She gets great lines in what few scenes she has, but she's basically a stereotype of every dolled up older dame who ever entered a bar. Douglas gets to sing, show off his gun twirling and fast shooting, but his best scenes are when he reveals his inner torment. It's colorful, action filled, but no different than dozens of other A list color westerns from the same era. -
Film so good that it was copied eight years later Season One Episode 15 of the Virginian entitled "Duel at Shiloh". Brian Keith adroitly plays the Kirk Douglas role. This episode also marks the introductory episode of Shiloh ranch hand Steve Hill played by Gary Clarke.
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Petey-1015 December 2010Dempsey Rae is a cowboy, who has a fear of barbed-wire.He has scars all over his chest, and his brother got killed by barbed-wire.Now he wanders into town with a young friend, Jeff Simson.They're hired to work for an absentee rancher called Reed Bowman.He soon finds out the rancher is an attractive woman.She's a tough woman, whose plans may hurt the neighbor harmony.Man Without a Star (1955) is a western by King Vidor.It stars Kirk Douglas, who turned 94 last Thursday, as Dempsey Rae.He's just the right guy for the part.He's got enough toughness for the role, but has also a soft and tender side.Jeanne Crain is certainly the right woman to portray Reed Bowman.William Campbell is terrific as Jeff "Texas" Simson.Claire Trevor is marvelous as Idonee.Richard Boone is great as Steve Miles.Jay C. Flippen is superb as Strap Davis.Myrna Hansen is very good as Tess Cassidy.And so is Eddy Waller, who plays Tom Cassidy.Mara Corday gives a fine portrayal of Moccasin Mary.Frank Chase is terrific as Little Waco.Great work by Sheb Wooley, who plays Latigo.Jack Elam gives a short but great performance as Knife Murderer.Frankie Laine is behind the catchy theme song.This may not be the most classic western, but I sure liked it.One of the greatest scenes in this movie is where Dempsey, instead of fighting with Miles, starts singing and playing his banjo in the saloon.It brings some lightness to this western.And one memorable scene is where Dempsey shows his scars.All the western fans should see this movie.
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kosmasp10 December 2022No pun intended - and a quote that might remind you of another movie. And a bit of a tweaked version of this: Go ahead! Make my day! Now that might be a big coincidence ... it might also be way more than that. Not sure if consciously or not subconsciously - but if Clint Eastwood or the screenwriter of Dirty Harry (I think it was the second one) watched this movie ... there is a good chance they riffed on this one.
And why not? Another great actor did a really good job delivering the quote ... and it may not be the same scene ... but close enough. Other than that, this is a Western movie I did not have on my radar! And I reckon it is lesser known .. which is strange considering the cast this has ... mainly Kirk Douglas of course.
Really well made and based on a novel - though as I was made aware, this does not cover all of the source material. I have obviously not read the book .... I can only say that the movie does work. If you don't mind the obvious old school pacing and fight scenes ... they work, but might not always have aged in the best possible way. -
bux7 November 1998The man without a star is Douglas, and the Star is the picture here. Douglas apes, cavorts, and even sings his way thru the part of the seasoned cowboy attempting to teach a tenderfoot the ways of the range. Campbell is good as the young green-horn that learns his lessons perhaps too well. Although the fun seems a bit forced at times, this one is hard not to like.
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Criticalstaff10 December 2021It is a nice adventure film. We follow Kirk Douglas' Dempsey Rae as he goes through this one little town and gets embroiled into the various local dramas and situations. Each little events leading to a culminating feud that pits everyone against each other.
One great thing this movie does is carefully laying out the lifestyle of the West. It is very didactic in its approach and takes the time to present and explain all these little things and how they work. There is an amount of romantic admiration for that rancher lifestyle and the life on the frontier. It is harsh and unforgiving, and the film gives all of those pains mostly to the kid Dempsey befriends. But, it also infuses Dempsey with a carefree attitude that is obviously endearing. The first half of the film, when Dempsey takes the kid under his wing and they become ranchers, is wholesome, informative and fun. It is something you rarely see in film anymore: just a story of people getting a job, and doing said job.
The film somewhat breaks down when the idealised picture of the West is confronted with the plot. The first half has barely any drama in it. The second half is almost nothing but drama. The plot is interesting and also representative of the economics of the old West. Yet, it is tonally inconsistent with the quasi-wholesomeness of the beginning of the adventure. The movie turns dark pretty much without notice.
There is something to be said about the main character. It is at first established that Dempsey is against barbed wire in grazing. The film opposes a rather decentralized organisation view against a more monopolistic/predatory approach. That stuff is in itself great, it takes a rather obtuse economic concept and illustrates it clearly. However, later on the plot forces Dempsey to take a stand for barbed wire and spends most of the movie in support of that practice. There are action scenes of our hero putting up barbed wire. It cheapens a bit the character and you got the feeling that overall Dempsey is too removed from the central tension. It is a flip-flop on such a central issue of the movie; that it feels like he does not actually care. Therefore it softens the tension that would have been.
In my view, what the film does best is illustrating that the western genre needed an update in its form and function. That revolution would come with the Italian westerns, where the focus would go from the specific logistics and practices of the West to deeper emotional resonance and riveting characters arcs. Not so much about grazing rights and cattle management, but rather life and death; good and evil. -
xredgarnetx10 February 2007MAN WITHOUT A STAR has to be one film the former Issur Danielovitch must surely wish he could erase from his resume. Douglas plays a ne'er-do-well ranch hand who ends up switching sides during a range war among two big cattle ranches. Jeanne Crain is the boss lady of the ranch he starts out on, and you can almost feel the beginnings of THE BIG VALLEY in this largely awful Western from the 1950s. Outfitted in stylish, form-fitting shirts, Douglas is simply terrible as the conflicted cowpoke. Talk about miscasting. Crain isn't bad as the boss lady, but she's no Barbara Stanwyck. A veritable army of familiar supporting players including Jay C. Flippen can barely keep this turkey afloat. The script stinks, the direction is aimless, the cinematography is wasted. If this was the kind of movie intended to keep viewers away from their TVs, I can't imagine it succeeded in doing so -- even though I understand it was a box office hit in its time.