One of two movies that Burt Lancaster directed as well as starring in. This one (the other was
MIDNIGHT MAN), the first, is about a naïve uneducated backwoodsman (Lancaster) and his son (Donald MacDonald) from Kentucky on a trek to Texas. But at a stopover to visit his brother (John McIntire), he finds himself dangerously close to settling down and putting down roots much to his son’s frustration. The film has a nice rural feel to it and Oscar winning cinematographer Ernest Laszlo does justice to the handsome Kentucky and Indiana locales with an untypical (for him) Americana score by Bernard Herrmann. Still, it’s simplicity is almost too simple to the point of obviousness and the deviousness of almost everybody that Lancaster meets (including his own brother) seems a bit much. The women in love with him are well played by Dianne Foster as an indentured servant and Diana Lynn as the local schoolmarm. With Walter Matthau in his film debut as the whip wielding villain, Una Merkel, John Carradine, Lisa Ferraday and Rhys Williams.
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