Sun 6 Aug 2017
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: MAN WITHOUT A STAR (1955).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[10] Comments
MAN WITHOUT A STAR. Universal International, 1955. Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor, William Campbell, Richard Boone, Jay C. Flippen, Screenplay by Borden Chase & D. D. Beauchamp, based on a novel by Dee Linford (1952). Director: King Vidol.
It starts off promising enough. Frankie Lane’s title song plays while we see a black train belching billows of smoke into a blue Western sky as it traverses a long barren landscape. The theme soon becomes obvious, that of how fencing in grassland with barbed wire represents the beginning of the end for the Old West. All indications are that the primary story Man Without a Star is designed to tell is that of one man’s unfruitful quest to battle the forces of technological progress as it advances across the frontier.
Problem is: the movie loses this central focus and, as it drifts further away from what could have been a unifying them, it ends up being more of a mixed-up muddled affair that doesn’t pack nearly the punch of the movie it should have.
Kirk Douglas portrays Dempsey Rae, a cowboy from Texas who has made his way out to Wyoming to work as a cowhand. His reason for leaving Texas is simple: he doesn’t like barbed wire and the concomitant range wars that arise when greedy ranchers use it to claim grassland as their own. So, along with Jeff Jimson (William Campbell), his newfound green young friend that he takes under his wing, Dempsey goes to work for lady ranch owner Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain). Soon enough Dempsey discovers that Reed’s rivals are using barbed wire to enclose their grassland. From then on, it’s game on. Dempsey is going to side with his new employer and lover.
Soon enough, however, Dempsey realizes that the seductive Reed is just as much a scoundrel as any avaricious male rancher. Case in point is her hiring of gunslinger Steve Miles (Richard Boone) to put the squeeze on her rivals. Before long, Dempsey’s world is turned upside down. His new friend Jeff betrays him, Reed deserts him, and he’s working for the ranchers who are using barbed wire – the stuff he hates more than anything else in the world.
Nothing in this movie ever gels. There are too many subplots and thematic elements that are raised but which are never fully explored, thus detracting from the movie’s would-be central theme, that a single man attempting to outrun the closing of the American frontier.
For instance, there’s the introduction of Idonee (Claire Trevor), a local madam who seemingly has known Dempsey for many years. The film doesn’t exactly know what to do with her, so she appears, then disappears, then comes back again to play the role of Dempsey’s personal savior. Similarly, the father-son cycle of life relationship between Dempsey and Jeff seems artificial and forced.
Then there’s the case of the murder that takes place in the opening minutes of the film, in which an itinerant traveler on the same train as Dempsey and Jeff kills a man. The murder, along with the introduction of the town’s sheriff to investigate the crime when the train comes to a halt, just happens and never comes up again.
This is my main criticism of Man Without a Star. A lot of stuff just happens, making the movie, despite a solid performance by Douglas, a bit too formulaic for its own good.
August 6th, 2017 at 7:48 pm
Even more bizarre, as far as I was concerned, is how Jeanne Crain’s character, the female ranch owner that Kirk Douglas has a brief affair with, simply disappears from the last 10 or 15 minutes of the movie. It’s as if they producers of this film had no idea what to do with her.
The other problem with this film is that when Kirk Douglas’s character goes on his way at the end of the movie, it’s as if nothing has changed for him, good or bad, one way or the other.
August 6th, 2017 at 8:39 pm
Steve, things did change for him. He was going to make Lonely Are The brave, a better picture with a similar theme. Neither make it for me.
August 6th, 2017 at 10:18 pm
Man Without A Star is certainly similar to Lonely Are the Brave, but Lonely Are the Brave is better, in fact one of my top western favorite movies.
By the way, there are a couple scenes where Kirk Douglas plays the banjo and he really reminded me of my old book and pulp collecting pal, Harry Noble! Harry’s been gone now 10 years but Douglas looked just like Harry who I saw play guitar and banjo so many times.
August 6th, 2017 at 11:22 pm
It may have been the same banjo he played in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Kirk Douglas, that is, not Harry Noble!
August 7th, 2017 at 1:18 am
I don’t think the writer or the director and likely the public were ready for an existential hero in a Western in 1955, no one in the film save Douglas seems to know what to do with the main character, certainly not how to construct a plot around him.
Still I like this much more then everyone else though I grant every criticism made of it. Aside from the theme song and Douglas performance nothing else works, but it is a fascinating glimpse of the soon to be Beat Generation making its first tentative push into an odd genre for it. A Jean Paul Sartre Western.
I’ve often wondered if the book was anything like the movie.
August 7th, 2017 at 11:30 am
David,
I like Kirk Douglas too, and if we were in his living room, that performance would be timeless, but the context throws me off. Just a thought: I believe Trevor’s part and Crain’s made sense ins script form, otherwise, Douglas and Vidor might not have signed on, but something went wrong during post-production, and probably at the sales or executive levels.
August 7th, 2017 at 9:59 pm
Barry,
No disagreement, but I do think at either script or directorial level this got away from them. I can’t help but wonder if there is a longer movie that got savagely cut either on page or film for length.
August 8th, 2017 at 4:33 pm
Back in Comment #5, David, you suggested checking out the book by Dee Linford and comparing it with the movie. That might be the only way to see what an early script for the film could have looked like.
As it turns out, there is a later movie based on the book, one called A Man Called Gannon (1969), starring Tony Franciosa and Michael Sarrazin in the two leading roles.
Even if it stuck more closely to the book, without a star like Kirk Douglas in it, I don’t think it did very well.
August 8th, 2017 at 5:56 pm
You got it, Jonathan: Some good ideas, a few nice moments,but it lacks focus.
August 9th, 2017 at 11:15 pm
I forgot the Franciosa film, but Sarrazin can’t be a good sign.
Also, I liked Barry’s idea of this as a dress rehearsal for LONELY ARE THE BRAVE. It is a very similar character.