The Kentuckian **** (1955, Burt Lancaster, Diana Lynn, Dianne Foster, Walter Matthau, John McIntire, Una Merkel, John Carradine) – Classic Movie Review 356

In his only film as sole director, Burt Lancaster also stars in this enjoyable 1955 Western, made for his company Hecht-Hill- Lancaster, with his producer partners Harold Hecht and James Hill. Sadly it had an unfavourable critical reaction, so Lancaster was put off and didn’t direct again for almost 20 years when he co-directed The Midnight Man in 1974.

It’s an 1820-set story about buckskin-clad Kentuckian frontiersman widower Big Elias ‘Eli’ Wakefield (Lancaster) and his young son Little Eli (Donald MacDonald). They plan to make their way to the wild country of the new state of Texas but they get mixed up in trouble when Big Eli buys a beautiful servant, becomes involved in a long-standing family feud and later is arrested by the corrupt local Constable (Rhys Williams) and thrown in jail.

Based on the novel The Gabriel Horn by Felix Holt, it’s a good, busy, likeable little story. But the old-fashioned film is slackly handled and Lancaster’s character is none too sparky, giving even this charismatic star trouble to be fascinating, though the fast cutting and short-running shots add a lot to convey a sense of pace and movement. Yet it’s an exceptionally handsome picture with marvellous Technicolor Scope cinematography by Ernest Laszlo and there’s a fine score too by Bernard Herrmann.

The screenplay by A B Guthrie Jr is lifted by several exciting action highlights, especially the gripping climax.

In his first film after five years of TV, a scene-stealing Walter Matthau is richly entertaining as the lip-smacking baddie, Stan Bodine. He’s a huge asset to the movie. He was always great in serious roles but comedies in the 60s with Jack Lemmon typecast him as a comedian. Matthau got his first big break when in 1948 he was hired as an understudy on Broadway for the role of an 83-year old English archbishop (!) in Anne of the Thousand Days starring Rex Harrison.

John McIntire, Dianne Foster, Diana Lynn, Una Merkel, John Carradine, John Litel, Edward Norris, Clem Bevans, Lee Erikson, Lisa Ferrady, Glenn Strange and James Griffith are also in a strong, reliable cast of mostly Western veterans.

Filmed mainly on location in Kentucky, the film’s main asset as captured here in the glorious cinematography. It was made in Cumberland Falls State Park in Corbin, Levi Jackson State Park in London and Owensboro, all three in Kentucky, as well as Rockport, Indiana.

The riverboat used in the movie was the Delta Queen. The producers paid $10,000 to add its fake smokestacks.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 356

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