Man Without a Star (1955)

Directed by King Vidor. Starring Kirk Douglas, William Campbell, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor, Richard Boone, Jay C. Flippen, Eddy Waller, Myrna Hansen, Mara Corday.

Transient cowboy Douglas befriends boisterous young buck Campbell, gets entangled in more ways than one with ambitious and unscrupulous rancher Crain. Sufficient Western entertainment finds Douglas showing off his skills with a six-shooter as well as a banjo (he even sings!), putting squirts, tramps, and black-hats in their place. Reasonably exciting at times, with a nice rough edge to its major female characters (so often reduced to mere marms, maidens and harlots in these sorts of programmers), but rather than build to a climax, the film just sort of peters out, leaving the viewer to wonder what happened to the final reel. Boone, a couple years before “Have Gun – Will Travel,” makes for a rather featureless antagonist. Displays an almost humorously extreme vendetta against barbed wire to the point of propaganda. The title is a bit deceptive considering the genre—the identified star refers to a guiding one in the sky, not a tin one pinned to a vest.

63/100