Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

weezeralfalfa Yet another range war western, in Technicolor. Yet, in some significant ways, it is special. The person with ambitions to be the cattle baron in this region is a beautiful, sophisticated, iron-willed woman (Jeannne Crain, as Reed) from the East. The man she wants to make love to, if only to serve as an inducement to remain her foreman, is Kirk Douglas, as Dempsey. He's basically a wanderer, who is vacillating between a desire to support Reed's open range policy, which he equates with more personal freedom for him, and a desire to give the surrounding small ranchers a more even shake, by allowing them to put up fences to contain Reed's voracious ambition, and to preserve the quantity and quality of the grass, by fencing out Reed's bloated cattle herd. Reed's stated policy is to exploit the good grazing for several years, and when it's converted to poor grazing, move on to another unfenced good grazing area. This is not what most of the small ranchers want to do.Like Monte Walsh, Dempsey has no desire to 'hitch his wagon to a star', perhaps the star being Reed. He wants to continue his wandering lifestyle, and Reed would appear to be not interested in matrimony, unless perhaps to a virile, but tamable man, preferably who has a substantial cattle herd to add to hers.Jeff(William Campbell) is a young man, who wants to 'hitch his wagon' to Dempsey as his teacher on how to become proficient with guns, including some fancy juggling, and how to become a good wrangler. His position is rather like that of Anthony Perkins in relation to Henry Fonda, in "The Tin Star"(a different kind of star!). Jeff is also sort of a substitute for Dempsey's younger brother, who was killed in a Texas range war instigated by Steve Miles(Richard Boone).Clearly, the villains in this story are meant to be the grasping Reed and pugnacious Miles, who becomes Dempsey's replacement after the latter switched sides. Miles sends 3 men to kill Dempsey in the field, but, instead, Dempsey killed 2, and brought the other to Reed as a warning. Later, the 2 tussle, with Miles getting the worst of it, as he falls into a section of barbed wire. After this apparent victory, Dempsey rides off into the sunset, suggesting that Jeff pay more attention to his girlfriend, Tess.

James Hitchcock Range 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

tentender This is a very difficult film to write about, and I have hesitated to do so for some time. But I've now seen it for the fifth (maybe sixth) time, and feel obliged to sing its praises, for it has entertained, even fascinated me each time. It seems, on first viewing, to be a Western like many others: neither the main theme (the beginning of the range wars, brought on by the enclosure of grazing land) nor the main characters (a compendium of Western types), nor the romantic conflict or the younger man mentoring the older man theme are unique. But the interweaving of these themes with the deeply conflicted title character is so seamless and subtle that each one seems to reflect light on the others in a very satisfying way. What is most evident on first viewing is the extreme physical vitality of the playing. Kirk Douglas, for my money, has never been more appealing -- not, in fact, the first word that comes to mind with this very intense actor -- and intense he is here, but also richly comic. In fact, with his intensity, the comedy is often almost nearly that of a burlesque comic (NOT an insult, in my book! -- think of Bert Lahr or Phil Silvers, for two of the best examples). His reaction, for example, on seeing young cowpoke William Campbell "duded up" for the first time, or his dipping his comb in a goldfish bowl to dude up for Jeanne Crain. Nor is Douglas the only wildly vital player. Claire Trevor (in a rather small role, though third billed above the title) is magnificently stagy and yet thoroughly inhabiting her role as a good-hearted madam; Jay C. Flippen really excellent as a ranch foreman, particularly good in a deadpan scene with Douglas, eating dinner while outside, unseen, Campbell and Sheb Wooley are kicking the bejesus out of one another; and, most importantly, Campbell himself (first-featured, but in what is close to a co-starring role with Douglas), very believably callow and quite endearing. On later viewings, what is most remarkable is the fluidity of the characterization of Dempsey (Douglas), who is strongly opposed to barbed wire (i.e. the enclosing of the common herding land), but, faced with Crain's ruthless grabbing of the land (with 30,000 head!) realizes that there is no other way to stop this robber baron. In the end, he has been helpful enough to the small ranchers that they offer him his own herd, and land on which to graze it. His reaction to this is poignant and true to himself: "I just don't like barbed wire." And off he goes, further north, from Wyoming, maybe, who knows?, as far as Canada. For a long time, I was not convinced by Jeanne Crain as, essentially, the film's villain. She is lovely in nice girl roles ("A Letter to Three Wives," "Centennial Summer," "Leave Her to Heaven," being three of her most charming parts), but in this she is meant to be hard and cold -- a real stretch for her. But Vidor has her play the part in a very stylized way, and ultimately I find that her stiff slinkiness is just about right for this part: she is meant to be the embodiment not of evil but, less judgmentally, of someone in mortal conflict with the welfare of the world and society that surrounds her. Interestingly, once Douglas has realized what she is (after she has bedded him simply to get what she wants), she disappears completely from the film. She doesn't even get killed -- she's just gone. A terribly interesting film, and one that bears easily many viewings. I'm glad to read that TMC is showing it with some frequency. I saw it first in Paris (several times during a short revival run) and have been lucky enough to acquire the French DVD. It's very curious that Universal has not seen fit to release this in the U.S. Certainly it's one of their best pictures, and Douglas is certainly a big enough star. But apparently no executive there has developed the necessary enthusiasm to get it released. Too bad. Once again, Europe is ahead of the U.S. in appreciation of our own cultural heritage. May I also put in a vote for another great Vidor picture, "Beyond the Forest," the Bette Davis picture that ended her years at Warner's. Oddly enough, Vidor in interviews has little respect for either of these pictures, but I find him at his very best in these "little" pictures (others being "Stella Dallas" and "The Champ"), where his "big themes" come to the fore from a distance, rather than being foregrounded (as in "The Fountainhead" or "Ruby Gentry").

Richard Burin 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)