The Kentuckian

Producer/star Burt Lancaster's only film as director was this marvellously photographed (by the great Ernest Laszlo, in fabulous early CinemaScope) outdoor adventure, based on Felix Holt's perceptive novel The Gabriel Horn. The screenplay is by Shane's AB Guthrie Jr, which perhaps accounts for the fact that Lancaster wears that familiar buckskin costume throughout the movie, and pretty darn fine he looks in it, too. The main theme is Lancaster's relationship with his young son, touchingly portrayed by Donald MacDonald. The women are weakly cast, but there are a pair of prize villains: John Carradine as a travelling quack, and, in his movie debut, nasty whip-wielding baddie Walter Matthau, whose main scene was hacked to ribbons by the UK censor before the film's original release - it has happily now been restored. The rousing score is by Bernard Herrmann - Citizen Kane, Psycho - and provides another reason to enjoy this movie.