L'homme qui n'a pas d'étoile

Terrific stuff! Kirk Douglas is a whiskey-sluggin' man's man who drifts into a Wyoming cattle town after taking young, hot-tempered William Campbell under his wing; they get jobs on cattle baroness Jeanne Crain's ranch, but she's fixin' to muscle in on her rancher-neighbors's land (for the grass) until her neighbor puts up a barbed-wire fence--something Douglas has a violent aversion to. Obviously a quality package, what with King Vidor directing and Douglas at the peak of his rough 'n tumble charms; his paternal relationship with Campbell suits him, as does tough-lady Crain as a possible love-interest. Screenwriters Borden Chase and D.D. Beauchamp get this outdoor yarn off to a great start, and it just keeps going from there. Strong cast includes Richard Boone as the villain, an uncredited Jack Elam as a killer, and Claire Trevor, wonderful as a bar hostess. Douglas swaggers, shoots, bites, plays the banjo and sings! It's one of his very best films. *** from ****

Man Without A Star is directed by King Vidor and adapted by Borden Chase & D. D. Beauchamp from the Dee Linford novel. It stars Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor, William Campbell & Richard Boone. Photographed by Russell Metty in Technicolor around the Thousand Oaks area in California, with the title song warbled by Frankie Laine.

Dempsey Rae (Douglas) is easy going and a lover of life, so much so he has no qualms about befriending young hot head Jeff Jimson (Campbell). The pair, after a scare with the law, amble into town and find work at a ranch owned by the mysterious Reed Bowman. Who after finally showing up turns out to be a lady (Crain), with very ambitious plans. As sexual tensions start to run high, so do tempers, as the boys find themselves in the middle of a range war.

It's all very conventional stuff in the grand scheme of range war Western things, but none the less it manages to stay well above average in spite of a tricky first quarter. For the fist part Vidor and Douglas seem to be playing the film for laughs, with the actor mugging for all he is worth. Add in the wet behind the ears performance of Campbell and one wonders if this is going to be a spoof. But once the lads land in town and the girls show up (Trevor classy, Crain smouldering), the film shifts in gear and starts to get edgy with Vidor proving to have paced it wisely. The thematics of era and lifestyle changes, here signified by barbed wire, are well written into the plot. While interesting camera angles and biting photography keep the mood sexually skew whiff. Boone lifts proceedings with another fine villain performance, and Jay C. Flippen in support is as solid as he almost always was. 7/10

Kirk Douglas is perfectly cast as Dempsey Rae, the happy wanderer cowboy, expert in guns and horses... Rae rides the open range of the Old West with an eye for the ladies and a fancy way with six-shooters...

The theme of the film is the gradual disappearance of freedom as the Wild West settles down to business and puts up barbed wire to mark the lines of investment... Dempsey Rae is a happy wanderer, content to move further and further west to escape the fences... He meets up with a naive farm-boy "Texas" (William Campbell) who yearns to be a man of action and almost as inept... In Dempsey "Texas" finds the right tutor...

The two team up and get themselves a job working for a beautiful ranch owner, Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain), who turns out to be as unscrupulous as she is attractive... Reed is a 'cattle queen' who rides down the fences of her neighbors carrying the action to its absolute limit in order to prosper and make money...

Dempsey is happy to work for the lady for $30 a month and even happier to make love to her but he draws the line at laying his life for her in range wars... He quits the crooked beauty and drifts into the nearby town, to renew his acquaintance with Idonee (Claire Trevor), a madam with the proverbial heart of gold...

The likable Dempsey is rocked out of his contentment by his successor at the Bowment Ranch, a brute named Steve Miles (Richard Boone) who feels he has to defeat every man in sight, especially when motivated by his glamorous boss...

"Man Without a Star" is a mighty satisfactory entertaining Western, once its premise is established... William Campbell helps Douglas make it so... The two performances are sympathetic, with Campbell looking to Douglas for leadership...

Douglas comes out as a likable star when he announces his presence by throwing his 'good looking' saddle on a window; he is graceful when he combs his hair with water from a goldfish bowl; and he is charming when he plays the banjo and sings a gaily ballad called: "And the Moon Grew Brighter and Brighter."

Jack Elam is cast as the leering, treacherous gunslinger trying to knife Douglas...

Director King Vidor had long established his ability with action sequences and pictorial scope in films like "Northwest Passage," and "Duel in the Sun," and "Man Without a Star" has a full measure of Vidor directed bar room fights, stampedes and chases...

With a lot of color, humor and action Vidor's motion picture is a traditional cattle range movie distinguished by its sheer energy and forceful visual style... The film traces some sex interest between Douglas and Crain, centering on a bathtub 'inside' the house...

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")

Man Without a Star is not ranked as one of Kirk Douglas's great films, but it's a personal favorite of mine and a tour de force for this player.

I don't think any actor in screen history could ever go from zero to 120 in intensity as Kirk Douglas. His character Dempsey Rae in this film is a free footloose cowpoke with charm to spare. When provoked he changes like lightning and he's a man not to be trifled with. Kirk Douglas could do this better than any other actor.

Douglas gets good support here from western regulars like Jay C. Flippen, Eddy Waller, Roy Barcroft. Claire Trevor, although she's played more heart of gold floozies than anyone else in cinema history is never bad. Jeanne Crain as the boss bad gal did well being cast against type.

William Campbell was famous for two things, a role in the original Star Trek series as a Klingon Captain named Koloff and the fact he was married once to Judith Exner who also was linked to President Kennedy and Sam Giancana. He's pretty good in this however as Douglas's sidekick/protégé who turns on him for a while. And Richard Boone never gave a bad performance in his life and doesn't do so here as the foreman Jeanne Crain hires to run roughshod over the smaller ranchers.

Western fans and Kirk Douglas fans will love this.