Man Without a Star **** (1955, Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor) – Classic Movie Review 7030

Director King Vidor’s 1955 Western rounds up the usual familiar Fifties ingredients: Kirk Douglas as a lonesome cowboy and a stock situation in which his roving drifter character Dempsey Rae works as foreman for a female rancher and helps settlers to erect barbed wire to thwart a cattle baron.

It is just average Western material, but director Vidor and writers Borden Chase and D D Beauchamp keep the action coming in this sturdy warhorse. Richard Boone is excellent as the villain, and even the romance with landowner Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain) and saloon gal Idonee (Claire Trevor) is well handled.

Based on Dee Linford’s novel, Man Without a Star takes its honorable place as a realistic and intelligent classic Western.

Also in the cast are William Campbell, Jay C Flippen, Mara Corday, Richard Boone, Roy Barcroft, Sheb Wooley, Eddy Waller, Mara Corday, Myrna Hansen, George Wallace, Frank Chase, Paul Birch and William ‘Bill’ Phillips.

Man Without a Star is directed by King Vidor, runs 89 minutes, is a Universal release, is written by Borden Chase and D D Beauchamp, based on Dee Linford’s novel Man Without a Star, is shot in Technicolor by Russell Metty, is produced by Aaron Rosenberg and is score by Hans J Salter.

It was remade in 1969 as A Man Called Gannon, with Tony Franciosa and Michael Sarrazin.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7030

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