MAN WITHOUT A STAR has to be one film the former Issur Danielovitch must surely wish he could erase from his resume. Douglas plays a ne'er-do-well ranch hand who ends up switching sides during a range war among two big cattle ranches. Jeanne Crain is the boss lady of the ranch he starts out on, and you can almost feel the beginnings of THE BIG VALLEY in this largely awful Western from the 1950s. Outfitted in stylish, form-fitting shirts, Douglas is simply terrible as the conflicted cowpoke. Talk about miscasting. Crain isn't bad as the boss lady, but she's no Barbara Stanwyck. A veritable army of familiar supporting players including Jay C. Flippen can barely keep this turkey afloat. The script stinks, the direction is aimless, the cinematography is wasted. If this was the kind of movie intended to keep viewers away from their TVs, I can't imagine it succeeded in doing so -- even though I understand it was a box office hit in its time.
Review of Man Without a Star
