The Kentuckian
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.20 You Save: $11.78 (79%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.46 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Kentuckian
Movie Review: they sure dont make em like this anymore!
Summary: 5 Stars
wow, we've got some pretty heavy critics here! my guess is that anyone who doesnt like the kentuckian is either a sissy or reviews way to many movies and needs to get some sunshine. as a boy i was fasinated by this movie. it was easy to be romanced by this film because of the boy and his dog and how he prefered hannah over the school marm, and is ultimatly right about her in the in the end. the movie knows exactly where its going(if you are paying attention)and has a beautiful way of showing you what things must have been like back then,i.e. the singing black entertainers prompting lancaster of "texas""texas" texas"!, when the boat comes to town. this is a wonderful movie for children that havent yet been polluted by the endless amount of crap that unfortunatly is in abundance nowadays. this film still has enough drama and human interest with an actual, real substance for any age. its a mere record of what life was like in one part of the world at one time and its done quite well if you let the movie take you instead of find whats wrong with it.Movie Review: Classic Lancaster
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a middle-aged man now, but I have never forgotten the scene in this movie where Lancaster races through a pond to reach his would-be killer before that man can reload his flintlock. As a kid, I was captivated by this. It is still a remarkable scene. And when, later, I saw Matthau in comedies, I always recalled his menacing character in this picture. This is a fun picture with no disappointments.Movie Review: Outstanding Frontier Adventure
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great film about America's past. Man and boy set out to reach Texas and find all sorts of trouble along the way. Great Bernard Herrmann score sets the haunting mood of this film with real gusto. I will never forget this one.Movie Review: A Western that takes place in Kentucky
Summary: 4 Stars
Released in 1955, "The Kentuckian" is one of only a couple films directed by Burt Lancaster.
THE STORY takes place during the presidency of James Madison circa 1815. Lancaster plays Eli Wakefield, a Kentuckian who desires more room to breath in Texas. Still in Kentucky, they blow their "Texas money" on freeing a beautiful indentured servant, Hannah (Dianne Foster). They don't get past the next frontier town where Eli takes up with his brother in the tabacco business and Hannah gets a job as a bar matron. Eli's dreams of Texas are sidetracked when he meets up with a school marm (Diana Lynn) who encourages him to settle down and make a family with her. The problem is that Eli's son prefers Hannah and doesn't want to give up their Texas dream. Meanwhile feuders are hot on Eli's trail, not to mention malevolent local businessman Walter Matthau with a whip.
Some of the highlights include:
-- Lush Eastern locations. The film was shot in Levi Jackson State Park, Kentucky (near London), as well as Owensboro, Kentucky, which is on the Ohio River, and Rockport, which is just across the river in Indiana. The river depicted in the film is supposed to be the Tennessee River (I think), but it was shot on the Ohio. In any event, although "The Kentuckian" is classified as a Western, it's actually an Eastern.
-- The film offers a good glimpse of what the Eastern USA was like back when it was still a frontier -- the cabin-style houses, sleeping in the woods, etc. No internet, cable, video games, dvds or microwaves. People actually sat down with other people and communed.
-- The story is realistic. You don't have to worry about any goofiness or unbelievable bits that plague some 50's Westerns.
-- Back then a huge riverboat coming to town was an exciting attraction. Americans today, by contrast, get all excited over the shenanegans of Britney Spears and whether or not her sister is having another baby.
-- Dianne Foster (Hannah) is a beautiful redhead. One wonders how a woman like this would stay single very long on the frontier.
-- The whip fight with Matthau is great. Lancaster is almost whipped to shreds (!).
-- Loyalty is a sub-theme here. Eli's son is loyal to Hannah and never warms up to the school marm. Hannah is loyal to the man who delivered her from bondage (Eli), despite his infatuation with the marm.
-- I liked the bit on Eli being a laughing stock because of a worthless freshwater pearl, but he gets the last laugh with a letter from the President (or is it?) and additional help.
-- Lastly, Lancaster is a likable protagonist with his charismatic joy-of-living persona, the antithesis of Eastwood's amoral and lifeless 'man with no name.'
The film runs an hour and 44 minutes.
BOTTOM LINE: "The Kentuckian" is breath of fresh air which I enjoyed from beginning to end for all the above reasons; it's sort of like "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992) of its era, albeit not as good. It's innocuous and easy-going, but it's as good as practically any 50's Western out there.
PERSONAL GRADE: B+ or A-
Movie Review: Looking for their place
Summary: 4 Stars
Burt Lancaster produced, directed, and starred in this slice of Americana based on the equally enjoyable The Gabriel horn. He plays Elias Wakefield, known as "Big Eli," a widower and backwoodsman who, like Dan'l Boone, has found that he needs more elbow room--though the outbreak of a family feud with the Fromes doesn't help matters any. So he and his 10-year-old son Little Eli (Donald McDonald) and their hound Pharaoh set out for Texas, which has just been opened to American settlers, and where they hope they'll find country that's like Kentucky used to be. Passing through an unfriendly community, they're helped by a bound-girl named Hannah (Dianne Foster) whose indenture, as a matter of honor, Eli buys out with the money he'd saved for their new home. Now he has to stop and seek work with his older brother Zach (John McIntire), a dealer in tobacco who's determined to civilize him. And his growing attraction to the local schoolmistress, Miss Susie (Diana Lynn), almost makes him yield--until his rivalry with the neighborhood bully, tavernkeeper Stan Bodine (Walter Matthau in his screen debut), and the arrival of two pursuing Fromes, force him to take a long hard look at what he really wants.
Lancaster plays his soft-spoken but true-to-his-own-code character very well, and puts across on an individual scale the conflict between "frontier" and "progress" that occupied a large part of the American stage for almost 300 years. Torn between the lure of far places and adventure, family loyalty, two loves, an unasked-for feud, and the importunings of empresario Pleasant Tuesday Babson (John Litel), who wants him to sign on as his second-in-command, Eli must walk a confused path and try to decide where he and his son will fit best.