Man Without a Star (1955)

A 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 .

While 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")

A 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)

MAN 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.