Product DescriptionBurt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) makes his directorial debut with this superb?? action-packed western. Featuring a poignant?? unconventional screenplay by A.B. Guthrie?? Jr.?? and a powerful performance by legendary actor Walter Matthau in his first screen role?? The Kentuckian is an unforgettable western adventure of the highest caliber. Big Eli Wakefield (Lancaster) and his youngson?? Little Eli (Donald MacDonald)?? are rugged Kentucky adventurers who long for an exciting life on the Texas frontier. They soon learn?? however?? that the greatest challenge to their progress lies not in the uncharted wilderness but in the people they meet along the way. Thrust into the midst of abitter family feud?? Eli confronts both the deadly rage of a madman (Matthau) and the love of a beautiful woman (Diana Lynn). B"s lured into a brutal final showdown?? Eli discovers that the only way to escape with his life is to stay true to his convictions?? his honor and his dream.Amazon.comAs an independent producer-star?? circus-tough with charisma to burn?? Burt Lancaster could be hard on directors. So it wasn't surprising when he decided he could do the job himself. It was a mistake he made only once (apart from cohelming 1974's The Midnight Man). For all his balletic control as an actor-athlete?? Lancaster showed no sense of how a film should move and breathe over an hour and a half?? or how to make the characters' growth or changes of mind credible. The Kentuckian has a bedrock American folk tale at its core?? but scarcely a clue how to tell it. It's the early 18th century--Monroe is president--and buckskin-clad Lancaster and his son (Donald