SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

HotToastyRag "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!

Freedom060286 This one is very similar to many other westerns, lacking anything unique. The sequence of events is very predictable - you know how it is going to end in the middle of the movie. The story is very simple and the personalities are vapid (the characters are very similar to those in many other westerns). Kirk Douglas performs very well as he always did. But most of the rest of the cast is rather wooden, with the exception of Richard Boone who comes across as convincingly menacing.

intelearts 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.

inspectors71 For all of us little boys, born and raised in the suburban wild west, there's King Vidor's The Man Without a Star, a brainless little oater that features Kirk Douglas at his most rough-and-tumble; with bullets, fists, and--gulp--hinted sex with Jeanne Crain (I never would have picked up on that as a 10 year old).If you get to see MWAS on AMC some Saturday morning, remember to ask yourself, as you wade through the machismo and the clichés, if movies really have gotten better over the last half century. That one's still up to the jury, but danged if seeing ol' Kirk duking it out with Richard Boone, teaching William Campbell how to shoot, and getting into a lip lock with Crain that made my remote control break out in a sweat is pretty good evidence that the folks in Hollywood could entertain the sweet grass out of us back in the day.Yeehaw!