Editing King Vidor (section)

====''Man Without a Star'', 1955====

Based on a story by Dee Linford of the same name and scripted by [[Borden Chase]], ''Man Without a Star'' is an iconographic Western tale of remorseless struggle between a wealthy rancher Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain) and small homesteaders. Saddle-tramp and gunman Dempsey Rae (Kirk Douglas) is drawn into the vortex of violence, that Vidor symbolizes with ubiquitous barbed-wire. The cowboy ultimately prevails against the hired gunslinger Steve Miles (Richard Boone) who had years ago murdered Rae's younger brother.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 295-296: "Hollywood's collective iconography...and the barbed=wire theme…" And "barbed-wire was the symbolic center of freedom's restraints and [on the other hand] the ruthless plundering of nature."</ref><ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 80</ref>

Kirk Douglas acted as both the star and uncredited producer in a collaborative effort with director Vidor. Neither was entirely satisfied with the result.  Vidor failed to fully develop his thematic conception, the ideal of balancing personal freedoms with conservation of the land as a heritage.<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 298: "...Vidor strove to establish a wider theme of land as a heritage deserving conservation…" And p. 299: "...it anticipates the conservationist concerns of the next generation." And "...a reverent sense of property and ecology."</ref>
Vidor and Douglas succeeded in creating Douglas's splendid character, Dempsey Rae, who emerges as a vital force, especially in the saloon-banjo sequence that screenwriter Borden Chase termed "pure King Vidor".<ref>Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 297: "One must include the saloon sequence as one of the most dazzling" of both Douglas and Vidor. And Borden Chase quote. <br />Baxter, 1976 p. 80: "...Douglas' charmingly lecherous performance…"</ref>

''Man Without a Star'', rated as "a minor work" by biographer [[John Baxter (author)|John Baxter]], marks a philosophical transition in Vidor's outlook towards Hollywood: the Dempsey Rae figure, though retaining his personal integrity, "is a man without a star to follow; no ideal, no goal" reflecting a declining enthusiasm by the director for American topics. Vidor's final two movies, the epics ''War and Peace'' (an adaptation of the novel by Russian author [[Leo Tolstoy]]), and ''Solomon and Sheba'', a story from the [[Old Testament]], followed the director's realization that his self-conceived film proposals would not be welcomed by commercial movie enterprises. This pair of historical costume dramas were created outside Hollywood, both filmed and financed in Europe.<ref>Baxter, 1976 p. 80: "a minor work..."<br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 299: "The film indicates, without exploring, a transition between Vidor's critical [analysis] of contemporary America and his more affirmative pair of costume epics...Vidor's interests seemed to have moved on from America...American had become as constricted as the Old World had been." And p.320: "Vidor's last commercial films – ''Man Without a Star'', War and Peace and Solomon and Sheba – celebrate heroes who, though deeply tainted by their societies, achieve a private integrity." <br />Durgnat and Simmon, 1988 p. 8 And p. "One might surmise that Vidor's recent failures...to find producers for his more personal projects engendered a certain defeatism, rendering him not unopposed to costume epics..." And p. 260: Vidor: "War and Peace...came to me through an agent, and I did not set out to do [it] as a personal project..."</ref>