In 1954, Burt Lancaster announced that he was planning to leave acting behind in order to become a full-time director. His first effort would be The Kentuckian (1955). As it turned out, aside from a minor co-directing credit on 1974's The Midnight Man, The Kentuckian would also end up being his only effort.

Based on the novel The Gabriel Horn by Felix Holt, the story was set in Kentucky circa 1820, when that state was on the edge of the frontier. It centered on a backwoodsman eager to pursue a future in Texas with his young son, partly because he is weary of an ongoing local family feud. Briefly tempted by his brother to stay in Kentucky and settle down, he in the end renews his determination to head for Texas with his son, only now they are joined by a woman. Lancaster's character is a Davey Crockett type, good-natured and slow to react in anger or negative emotion. In all, the picture is an amiable, folksy slice of Americana.

This was the first film Lancaster's independent production company made under its new agreement with United Artists, a deal which called for the production of seven films over two years at a total cost of $12 million. Initially, Lancaster saw the project as a musical, in the vein of Oklahoma!, but in the end he decided to hire Western novelist A.B. Guthrie, Jr., to adapt it as a straight dramatic piece.

Lancaster was quite vocal publicly about his belief that he knew perfectly well what he was doing as a director. "As an actor I've come to discover that lively discussions initiated by directors are not only stimulating but very valuable for character delineation," he wrote. To that end, he spent three weeks rehearsing before leaving Hollywood for the Kentucky location, mostly simply talking to his costars. But he created something of a splash when he was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "Directors are the most irresponsible people I've seen. They think they're supermen. Just try to show most of these directors where they may be wrong! They're afraid of being exposed." Then he applied for membership in the Directors Guild of America and was rejected because of his arrogance and "contempt" for the directing profession. The Guild instead gave him a waiver in order to direct The Kentuckian and invited him to reapply when the film wrapped - with the hope that his opinion of the profession would be higher. But by the time they offered the waiver, Lancaster was already filming.

Once into the shoot, Lancaster indeed started to find directing far more challenging and lonely than he had anticipated. Humbled by the experience, he admitted that he had been wrong: "I had the problem of getting up terribly early in the morning to go out to the locations to set everything up. I got home late at night. I had to work with all the rushes and work with the editor, and then sit up until midnight or sometimes one in the morning, going over the scenes for the next day. I had no time for anything. It's no life really. Nobody works harder than a director, if he's at all serious. His work is simply never finished." He also said, "I had no one to help me, I just struggled through on my own."

That's not entirely true, as Lancaster asked his friend James Hill, who had produced Vera Cruz the previous year, to help him out as his "third eye" when the cameras were rolling. But as Hill also had no directing experience, perhaps that arrangement was not the best. Regardless, all the hard work and long hours that Lancaster put into this project did not pay off with the critics. Their mostly lukewarm response hit Lancaster hard, and he abandoned his dream of a directing career.

Walter Matthau made his screen debut here as a whip-wielding villain, though even he later admitted that it was "a ridiculous part... I did it because I was desperately short of money."

Producers: Harold Hecht, James Hill
Director: Burt Lancaster
Screenplay: A. B. Guthrie, Jr., based on the novel The Gabriel Horn by Felix Holt
Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Production Design: Ted Haworth
Costume Design: Norma Koch
Film Editing: George E. Luckenbacher, William B. Murphy
Whip Instructor: Whip Wilson
Cast: Burt Lancaster (Elias Wakefield), Dianne Foster (Hannah), John McIntire (Zack Wakefield), Diana Lynn (Susie), Una Merkel (Sophie Wakefield), John Carradine (Fletcher), John Litel (Pleasant Tuesday Babson), Walter Matthau (Stan Bodine), Donald MacDonald (Little Eli Wakefield).
C-104m. Letterboxed.