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Don't Believe the Hype

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This film somehow gives me a lame feeling about the slow tempo of the screenplay, the soundtrack even a lit bit of annoying like all of the films in that era. Lancaster was so handsome in his prime. I like the dog, so smart and so cute. But I don't like the son character created in this film, more like and half-wit retard, just couldn't keep his mouth shut to get his father and the kind Hannah in trouble. The screenplay is too loose to keep the movie at a faster pace. Watching these kind of films with nowadays point of view, you really need patience to sit tight and watch along. All the bad guys in this film looked more like cartoon characters.

I really liked this movie. Hollywood usually doesn't cover this period because the firearms are rather cumbersome flintlocks. It's hard to have exciting gunplay, though Lancaster makes the best of it.The movie shows early America with all it's provincial warts. The townspeople seem rather cruel to the outsider (Lancaster) and his son because he's a rube, although they're not much better educated themselves. You can easily see these people rushing out to California to look for gold in a few years, trampling everything in their path. The backwoodsmen who seek to kill Lancaster are taciturn and single-minded. Exactly the type to carry on a feud for generations.There's no law enforcement in this town so the town bully (Mathau) does what he likes.An underlying theme is the importance of education and planning ahead. Lancaster turns the tables on the townspeople and gains their respect by using his education and smarts rather than by physical force.Lancaster does manage several fine action scenes, and as an actor is quite convincing as an ignorant rube (at first) and as a pretend rube (on the riverboat).I thought the movie paid close attention to period details and speech patterns. It really captured the young USA during it's early expansion period.I liked the inclusion of a musical sing-along by the piano, especially the lovely tune "My Darling".Spoiler: If there's a flaw in this movie is the failure of Lancaster to have more of a romance with Diane Foster. It's implied that they'll be together by the end of the movie, but they never even kiss.

BURT LANCASTER stars as THE KENTUCKIAN who has a yearning to go where the grass is greener and wants to leave Kentucky for a new life in Texas with his young son in tow. DIANA LYNN is a pretty schoolteacher at the schoolhouse cabin and DIANNE FOSTER is the other female lead, an indentured servant, with a yen for Lancaster.Good supporting roles for WALTER MATTHAU (making his screen debut) and JOHN CARRADINE. JOHN LITEL makes a welcome appearance as a riverboat man, but the story lacks a strong enough plot to maintain interest in the rather pedestrian proceedings. Filmed in widescreen color and CinemaScope, it looks as though a lavish budget has been expended on a tiresome script.Fortunately, the film picks up interest toward the last fifteen minutes when Lancaster and his son have to defend themselves against badman Matthau and his cohorts. There's also a confrontational bullwhip scene with Matthau and Lancaster that is well staged and effective.But the story is rather trite and there's nothing special about Lancaster's performance or his direction. I would have preferred a more appealing youngster for Young Eli than DONALD MacDONALD who walks through his role without ever inhabiting it.

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.