***SPOILERS*** Burt Lancaster plays the David Crockett-like, without the coonskin hat, Big Elias Wakefield a Kentucky native who together with his son Little Eli, Donald McDonald, and pet dog Farrell plan to make their way to the wilds of Mexican controlled Texas to start a new life. On their way their Elias ends up falling in love with two women indentured servant Hannah, Dianne Foster, and school teacher Susie, Diana Lynn, that divides his loyalties not just between the two ladies but territories, Kentucky & Texas, as well. While on his way to Texas both Elias and Little Eli start to distance themselves in that Papa Elias has second thoughts of going to Texas feeling right at home in Kentucky getting a job as a tobacco salesman for his big brother Zack, John MacIntire, and romancing Susie which makes little Eli a bit confused and mad at Papa. Changing his mind after making it up is something that Papa Elias isn't used to doing.
The film later has the villain in it Stan "Whippie" Bodine, Walter Matthau in his debut role, who in trying to put Elias in his place, in him becoming the big man in town, tries to take him out with his bull-whip only to get, with Hannah's help, himself battered unconscious by him. There's also the notorious Frome brothers, Douglas Spencer & Paul Wexler, who have a long standing blood feud, like the Hatfields & McCoys, with the Wakefields who in joining up with Bodine plan to whack him. It's Elias, or Burt Lancasters, brilliant track & field running that prevents the Fromes from doing it by beating them to their muskets that they have a hard time, after first firing them, loading them.
Burt's first of two movies that he directed, the last was "The Midnight Man" in 1974, that seems to have improved with age. In it he shows a unique sensitivity as well as courage that he later, in films like "The Swimmer" "Atlantic City" and "Field of Dreams", was to become famous for. He also doesn't hog the screen and gives his fellow actors more then enough time to develop their roles which really improved the film. Even villain Stan Bodine who despite his unlikeable character was given a chance to redeem himself by refusing to gun down Elias in cold blood who ended up getting murdered, by the Frome Brothers, instead!
The film later has the villain in it Stan "Whippie" Bodine, Walter Matthau in his debut role, who in trying to put Elias in his place, in him becoming the big man in town, tries to take him out with his bull-whip only to get, with Hannah's help, himself battered unconscious by him. There's also the notorious Frome brothers, Douglas Spencer & Paul Wexler, who have a long standing blood feud, like the Hatfields & McCoys, with the Wakefields who in joining up with Bodine plan to whack him. It's Elias, or Burt Lancasters, brilliant track & field running that prevents the Fromes from doing it by beating them to their muskets that they have a hard time, after first firing them, loading them.
Burt's first of two movies that he directed, the last was "The Midnight Man" in 1974, that seems to have improved with age. In it he shows a unique sensitivity as well as courage that he later, in films like "The Swimmer" "Atlantic City" and "Field of Dreams", was to become famous for. He also doesn't hog the screen and gives his fellow actors more then enough time to develop their roles which really improved the film. Even villain Stan Bodine who despite his unlikeable character was given a chance to redeem himself by refusing to gun down Elias in cold blood who ended up getting murdered, by the Frome Brothers, instead!