This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It's 1820 in Kentucky. James Monroe is president, and Burt Lancaster is a freedom-loving woodsman who takes his son, MacDonald, and heads for the river town where they will say hello to Lancaster's big brother, McIntire and his wife, Una Merkel. Along the way they pick up a young lady, Foster, and meet a friendly school teacher, Lynn.Well, while they's a-waiting' for the river steamer, ol' Burt soon has two wimmen a-moonin' after him -- one a indentured servant gal and the other a purty school ma'rm a-looking for a husband to go with her house. I shore hope I spelled "indentured" wright. Don't know what it means though. Maybe it means she got all her teeth. Sounds good for ol' Burt but it ain't so hot. I oncet had FIVE gals a-moonin' after ME and they was all purty too. Well, we done heard the chimes at midnight more'n oncet, and one night when we was pie-eyed there was all SIX of us, a-baying at the moon like Burt's huntin' dog, Pharaoh. The voices tell me to do things like this.The problem is that Burt has spent all their "Texas money" to free Foster from bondage. Now he has to go to work for his brother McIntire, and his boy has to go to school and learn something. "I'll turn him into a businessman," says well-meaning McIntire, "and I'll wear that buckskin right off him and OUT of him." This is not Burt's idea of a good time. He likes to lie out in the woods with his boy on a "prime night" and chase a fox or two with Pharaoh. ("The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.") The two of them yearn for the open skies of Texas where the air "tastes like it's never been breathed before." Aside from not having any money, there's another problem or two that need facing. Kentucky is a country of feuding clans and one scabrous clan is on Burt's tail. Another is the local mean guy who runs a saloon and wields a great big whip -- Walter Matthau, if you can believe it. On top of that, McIntire's wife begins to scold them for their backwood ways. She kicks the dog off the couch and nags Burt and his boy, which is beginning to sound painfully like my marriage.Two outstanding scenes for a warm and ordinary family movie: Burt and son playing rich hicks for riverboat gamblers and then turning the roulette wheel on them; a really NASTY fight between the sadistic and dirty-fighting Matthau and the proud and indefatigable Burt. Burt is whipped to tatters but guess who is knocked out.Very nice photography by Ernest Lazslo and a subtle score without a whistleable tune in it from Bernard Herrmann. Burt's direction is functional without being distinctive. It's not a bad movie. It's a warm, family drama with a little romance and violence to spice it up.

Not a fried chicken in sight in this film, and Burt Lancaster and son attempt to get to Texas in the early 19th century. They're hunters by trade, and love a good sing along too... so earplugs at the ready. Both are mercilessly picked on by nasty townsfolk as they attempt to raise enough money for the trip, and soon Lancaster finds himself in a love triangle with two women. Is he going to pick the one who seek to domesticate him away from his wild'n'free lifestyle, or will he opt for the gal who seeks the rolling plains of the lone star state? The answer may surprise you... (No it won't).Lancaster and his kid are so moral and upstanding compared to the other residents of this sleepy nook they find themselves in temporarily, it's easy to root for them as they beat the bullies while aspiring to their promising future. There's some fistfights, a bit of shooting and lots and lots of fake looking facial hair in this commendable sort-of Western, which is perfect for a Sunday afternoon in. Sergio Leone it ain't, but it does what it sets out to do... And has the added bonus of not ending a moment too soon. 6/10

The Kentuckian is directed by, and stars, Burt Lancaster. It's adapted to screenplay by A.B. Guthrie Junior from the novel The Gabriel Horn written by Felix Holt. Also starring with Lancaster are Dianne Foster, Diana Lynn, John McIntire, Donald MacDonald, Walter Matthau and John Carradine. A Technicolor/CinemaScope production filmed on location at Kentucky sites, with cinematography by Ernest Laszlo and music scored by Bernard Herrmann. Lancaster plays a Elias Wakefield, a Kentuckian pioneer and widower bound for 1820's Texas with his young son (MacDonald). But ill education, romance and mean townsfolk stunt his progress. Burt Lancaster had great designs to be a director, even planning to give up acting as early as 1955 to make directing his sole career. Foolishly thinking, and proclaiming, it to be an easy job, his experiences on making The Kentuckian would halt him in his tracks and the film would remain his only sole directing credit for the rest of his life. Unfortunately the film shows that the film world hasn't missed a great director in the making. It's a decent film, more because it is an interesting misfire than any great dramatic thrust. There's very good period flavours here, the photography is often gorgeous, Herrmann's score (used better in Jason and the Argonauts 8 years later) is appealingly tone setting and a few scenes really do hit the mark, but the pace is stop-start and Lancaster isn't sure how to direct himself, with the big man turning in a performance that sits somewhere between camp and aww shucks machismo. He handles his other cast members well, where it's good to see two female characters properly impact on the storyline, but the screenplay sometimes falls flat and scene skipping cheapens the production (one moment Lancaster is in jail, we see a hand lift a key out a coat pocket and the next shot he and his son are relaxing out in the wilderness with Diana Lynn!). Another major problem is the ludicrous nature of the main villain, Walter Matthau's whip-wielding Stan Bodine, the daftness of such Matthau (in his first big screen role) himself would decry later in his career at how ridiculous the role was. Yet the character features in the best scene in the film, as Bodine and Wakefield are pitched in a fight, man with whip against man with only brawn on his side. This oddness (stupid character features in best scene) that says volumes about The Kentuckian's variable quality. Other strong scenes flit in and out, such as a riverboat gambling sequence, while the finale that sees Lancaster run full pelt across a river to take down a foe, is hugely entertaining. But once the end credit flashes up you may find yourself scratching your head and pondering just what you had just sat through?Entertaingly messy! 6/10

If this long and not very gripping tale of the very old west proves something, then certainly, that being a good actor is not necessarily the fundamental for being a good director or a good selector of scripts. This tale of father and son starts reasonably good, but never really takes off to what it could have been. Lancaster is a little wooden, as if he had to often looked for nowhere to get directorial guidance and the rest of the cast also does not really shine. Best things : Walter Matthau in his screen debut, alternating between Matinée hero with reasonably good vocal efforts (dubbed or not, i don't know) and Sado-Maso whipper with a gay sub tone and Lancaster in the climax going the distance over a river ford, while his enemies desperately try to be ready. At a vote of 5, there should be better things found to do than watching this.