The Kentuckian

Lancaster's only film as a director is a slow-moving, lack-lustre Western in which he plays a Kentucky frontiersman who, travelling to Texas with his young son to make a new start, becomes involved with two women and a family feud. Matthau makes an impressively villainous debut (though the scene in which he bullwhips the unarmed Lancaster tends to be censor-trimmed), and Carradine is good value as a garrulous doctor; but in general the direction tends to get bogged down in not very interesting characters and relationships while neglecting to deliver the action.