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This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

"How does it feel being put in your place?" "I wouldn't know."Pizazz, spunk, humor, and romance are all found in Borden Chase and D.D. Beauchamp's screenplay to Man Without a Star, but without the wonderful cast to say those great lines, I'm not sure how well it would have played. Kirk Douglas takes the lead in this delightful western as a drifting cowboy with attitude. Surprisingly enough, he's not the bad boy! Jeanne Crain is the bad girl, and the sparks that fly between them are scorching! Jeanne is the ranch owner Kirk works for, and she's a very tough boss. She's hard on her ranch hands, and even harder on Kirk, using every bargaining chip in the book to get what she wants out of him.Joined by Claire Trevor, William Campbell, Richard Boone, and Jay C. Flippen, the cast and director King Vidor creates a classic western, with every element in place to help it stand the test of time. This is definitely one you'll want to watch over and over again, especially if you're a Kirk Douglas fan. My favorite scenes are the tension-filled banters between Jeanne and Kirk, but there's another great scene that's a staple in the western genre: teaching the new kid how to be a cowboy. In Man Without a Star, the scene has an extra oomph of humor and charm, making it surpass other westerns that blend together in my memory. "Did your mother ever tell you it was rude to point?" Kirk asks William Campbell, after he's missed the shooting target. "Sure," William says. "Well, when you're using a gun, you're downright rude, so point!" Too cute!

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

Before Eastwood, before Spaghetti, Westerns came in two flavors: the first was Gary Cooper; serious gunslingers and death, and the other was John Wayne; tales of manliness and Western values.Douglas here is definitely in the latter vein. The plot of the cattle ranchers and the greenhorn is very familiar and this is definitely a character driven piece.It is full of energy, charm, and fun. It is not however a great film; I never felt involved, but I was entertained.It is too lightweight to be anything other than a good Western as seen through Hollywood's eyes. Fine and dandy for a while, but really instantly forgettable afterward.If you like Westerns then this is definitely worth viewing - just don't expect it to do anything than entertain.

Consistently shown these days on AMC, I managed to catch "Man Without A Star" this morning. Without knowing anything about the story, one might think it had something to do about a lawman without a badge, but here the title is used figuratively, and makes sense when cowpoke Dempsey Rae (Kirk Douglas) teaches his sidekick, Texas Jeff (William Campbell), on finding his way by following an evening star. In that regard, the 'man without a star' in the story would have been the direction-less Jeff Jimson, as Dempsey Rae always knew where he was going, even if conflicted about it.Douglas seems to be having a genuinely good time here, strutting his stuff on banjo much like he did in his film from a year earlier, "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". Seeing it on TV, I didn't have the opportunity to pause and rewind, but it looked like Douglas finished playing his first song about a half click before the music stopped. I can still give him credit for his singing voice though.The story itself is a fairly typical open range tale that turns deadly once barb wire enters the picture - "When wire comes in, there's fightin' and killin'." A little more thought could have gone into developing Dempsey's stand on the issue; at first we're convinced he's dead against it, then he's putting up a fence in defiance of former boss Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain). By the end of the story, he's heading into a further fence-less West, leaving behind Bowman, Texas Kid, and Madame Idonee (Claire Trevor). In hindsight, I would like to have seen more of Trevor in the story, maybe brawling it out with Bowman the way Dempsey and hell raiser Steve Miles ( Richard Boone) did, wouldn't that have been something?I liked director King Vidor's subtle humorous bits in the story, notably the running gag about a bathroom 'in the house', and Kirk Douglas combing his hair with the help of a goldfish bowl. And say, have you ever seen the Kirk Douglas dimple more pronounced than it is here?