The Kentuckian (1955)

That was an excellent one.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The Kentuckian is directed by, and stars, Burt Lancaster. It's adapted to screenplay by A.B. Guthrie Junior from the novel The Gabriel Horn written by Felix Holt. Also starring with Lancaster are Dianne Foster, Diana Lynn, John McIntire, Donald MacDonald, Walter Matthau and John Carradine. A Technicolor/CinemaScope production filmed on location at Kentucky sites, with cinematography by Ernest Laszlo and music scored by Bernard Herrmann. Lancaster plays a Elias Wakefield, a Kentuckian pioneer and widower bound for 1820's Texas with his young son (MacDonald). But ill education, romance and mean townsfolk stunt his progress. Burt Lancaster had great designs to be a director, even planning to give up acting as early as 1955 to make directing his sole career. Foolishly thinking, and proclaiming, it to be an easy job, his experiences on making The Kentuckian would halt him in his tracks and the film would remain his only sole directing credit for the rest of his life. Unfortunately the film shows that the film world hasn't missed a great director in the making. It's a decent film, more because it is an interesting misfire than any great dramatic thrust. There's very good period flavours here, the photography is often gorgeous, Herrmann's score (used better in Jason and the Argonauts 8 years later) is appealingly tone setting and a few scenes really do hit the mark, but the pace is stop-start and Lancaster isn't sure how to direct himself, with the big man turning in a performance that sits somewhere between camp and aww shucks machismo. He handles his other cast members well, where it's good to see two female characters properly impact on the storyline, but the screenplay sometimes falls flat and scene skipping cheapens the production (one moment Lancaster is in jail, we see a hand lift a key out a coat pocket and the next shot he and his son are relaxing out in the wilderness with Diana Lynn!). Another major problem is the ludicrous nature of the main villain, Walter Matthau's whip-wielding Stan Bodine, the daftness of such Matthau (in his first big screen role) himself would decry later in his career at how ridiculous the role was. Yet the character features in the best scene in the film, as Bodine and Wakefield are pitched in a fight, man with whip against man with only brawn on his side. This oddness (stupid character features in best scene) that says volumes about The Kentuckian's variable quality. Other strong scenes flit in and out, such as a riverboat gambling sequence, while the finale that sees Lancaster run full pelt across a river to take down a foe, is hugely entertaining. But once the end credit flashes up you may find yourself scratching your head and pondering just what you had just sat through?Entertaingly messy! 6/10

Burt Lancaster directs and stars in this action packed western. Its the 1820's and rugged frontiersman Big Eli Wakefield(Lancaster)finds his old Kentucky stomping grounds are becoming too tame; so he heads to wide open Texas with his young son Little Eli(Donald MacDonald). A new beginning and new lifestyle does not come easy for the the Kentuckian. Adventure, history and romance mixed with some humor makes for a very entertaining family film. Beautiful scenery; and my favorite sequence is the brutal fight between Lancaster and a whip-wielding Walter Matthau.THE KENTUCKIAN is based on a novel by Felix Holt and is briskly paced making it so easy to watch. Others featured in the cast: Dianne Foster, John McIntire, Una Merkel and John Carradine.

A mix of 50's sensibilities and period art the way they could only do it in the 1950s. Lancaster is stiff at times, but shines in the riverboat scene and of course handles the on screen fights pretty well. A.B. Guthrie Jr. knows what to put in a frontier story, and Matthau, McIntire and Carradine act rings around the rest of a fairly lackluster cast. The part of the boy isn't well-directed, and only manages to be a fairly sympathetic character. Both Foster and Lynn seemed miscast... Foster was too elegant for the indentured servant role and the Lynn character weak for a frontier schoolmistress. But the story holds together and is worth the watch for fans of Matthau, Lancaster, or the genre of offbeat 50's westerns. Watch for almost a dozen 'stock' cowboy figures from that era popping in and out of scenes, like James Griffith as a perfectly evil riverboat gambler.

This picture shows Burt Lancaster was a much better actor than a director. After "The Kentuckian" he never tried directing again - a decision good for him and much better for the audience. The direction is lazy and slow-going, the script disappointing (I wonder that A.B. Guthrie, the writer of brilliant old-west-novels, didn't make a better job). The photography is good, the landscapes are great and few actors are fine, for example Walter Matthau as slimy bad guy. There are two special moments in the picture you surely will not forget: The bull-whip-fight between Matthau and Lancaster is exciting and the showdown, when Burt is running fast across the river while his enemy tries to load his rifle, is very different to other western-shootouts. This scenes will compensate viewers for foregoing boredom. I give five out of ten stars.