Man Without a Star (1955)

A drifter working as foreman for an iron-fist female rancher must chose sides between his attractive employer and the other neighboring settlers who are mistreated by her.

Director:

King Vidor

Writers:

Borden Chase (screenplay), D.D. Beauchamp (screenplay)

Stars:

Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Kirk Douglas	...	Dempsey Rae
Jeanne Crain	...	Reed Bowman
Claire Trevor	...	Idonee
William Campbell	...	Jeff Jimson
Richard Boone	...	Steve Miles
Jay C. Flippen	...	Strap Davis
Myrna Hansen	...	Tess Cassidy
Mara Corday	...	Moccasin Mary
Eddy Waller	...	Tom Cassidy (as Eddy C. Waller)
Sheb Wooley	...	Latigo
George Wallace	...	Tom Carter
Frank Chase	...	Little Waco
Paul Birch	...	Mark Toliver
Roy Barcroft	...	Sheriff Olson
William 'Bill' Phillips	...	Cookie (as Wm. "Bill" Phillips)

Storyline

Dempsey Rae, a cowboy with no clear aim in life, winds up working on a spread with a hard lady owner just arrived from the East. She needs a tough new top hand and uses all her means of persuasion to get Rae to take the job. But he doesn't like the way the other settlers are getting treated and starts to side with them, despite their introduction of the barbed wire he loathes.

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Plot Keywords:

late 19th century | wyoming | cattle ranch | female rancher | based on novel | 

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Taglines:

His home was his saddle...and his only friend...a six-gun!

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Genres:

Western

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 October 1955 (France)

Also Known As:

L'homme qui n'a pas d'étoile

Filming Locations:

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$2,200,000, 31 December 1955

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.00 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jean Crain plays a Mrs. Bowman in both Dangerous Crossing and Man Without A Star.

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Goofs

When Dempsey Rae and Jeff Jimson are rousted off the train near the beginning of the movie, they are standing in front of a boxcar that has a registration mark painted on the side indicating it was built in December 1923. However, the movie is set in the old West of the late 19th century.

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Quotes

Dempsey Rae: A maverick...a calf with no mother. No brand neither.
Jeff Jimson: Why not?
Dempsey Rae: Oh, on account he was missing at roundup time. He outgrew his mother and wandered off. Sort of like you.

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Connections

Featured in Bosch: Raise the Dead (2019)

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Soundtracks

Man Without A Star
Music by Arnold Schwarzwald (as Arnold Hughes)
Lyrics by Frederick Herbert
Vocal by Frankie Laine

User Reviews

Flawed but Entertaining

While traveling clandestine in a train, the drifter cowboy Dempsey Rae (Kirk Douglas) befriends the naive youngster Jeff "Texas" Jimson (William Campbell) and helps him when he is arrested by mistake in a train station. Dempsey Is hired by the foreman Strap Davis (Jay C. Flippen) to work in the ranch owned by the greedy Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain), who brings civilized habits from the East, like having a bathroom inside the house. When the owners of minor ranches use barbed wire fence in the open grass to protect some land for their cattle in the winter, Reed hires a gang of troublemakers leaded by Steve Miles (Richard Boone) to work in her ranch and tries to seduce Dempsey to convince him to help her. But Dempsey decide to help the ranchers against the gunmen and Reed.

"Man Without a Star" is a flawed but entertaining western. Kirk Douglas performs a nice cowboy that "adopts" a youngster to be the substituted for his brother that was killed in a dispute of land; hates barbed wire fences that he associates to the cause of the death of his brother; and is very successful with women. However, despite telling that barbed wire comes together with fights and killings, his character is incoherent when he defends the ranchers that are installing barbed wire fences. Jeanne Crain is amazingly seductive and sexy with her beauty, and her manipulative character is strong but totally forgotten in the end of the story. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Homem Sem Rumo" ("Drifter")