Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Flaming Star Blu-ray Movie Review

Elvis Presley, Actor.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 25, 2014

Flaming Star is often cited as the film where Elvis Presley proved he could act, but it’s also an interesting entry from a somewhat different standpoint. Fifties' westerns started reexamining the preconceived notions of what "Injuns" (as Flaming Star often calls them) were, with some films attempting to personify the clash of cultures between Native Americans and interloping whites in one character. These films started exploring issues of so-called “half breed” Indians, or at least individuals whose backgrounds caused them to have one foot in Caucasian society and the other in Native American culture. John Ford's immortal 1956 The Searchers is often thought to be one of the progenitors of this western subgenre, though in actuality the child in that film isn’t actually a half breed, but simply a white kid who’s been kidnapped and raised by the Comanche. Similarly, 1959’s The Unforgiven (based, like The Searchers, on a novel by author Alan LeMay), simply twists that idea on its head, this time positing a Native American child having been raised by whites. None other than Walt Disney himself also explored somewhat similar issues in his film version of The Light in the Forest, a 1958 film whose 1953 source novel by Conrad Richter might rightly be thought of as one of the first mass market presentations of some concepts shared by these properties, predating the first LeMay novel by a year or so. Presley’s character of Pacer Burton in Flaming Star is in fact a half breed, a “mixed blood” kid with a white father named Sam (John McIntire) and a Kiowa mother named Neddy (Dolores del Rio). Already Flaming Star is somewhat notable in that both parents are depicted openly as a quasi mixed race couple, so that there’s not the “convenience” of an abduction or kidnapping to create the conflict between two societies. That dialectic, as personified by Pacer, is at the center of Flaming Star’s rather intense and at times quite moving drama. Presley is commendable in the role, showing both a steeliness and a rather charming vulnerability (almost an insecurity at times) that makes Pacer’s predicament as he seeks to find his place in the world quite compelling.

Rather interestingly, Flaming Star doesn’t really announce the mixed marriage of Ma and Pa Burton or the mixed race status of Pacer in any declarative fashion, at least in the early going. Instead, Pacer and his half-brother Clint (Steve Forrest) return to the Burton ranch one night, concerned that no lights are in in the farmhouse. That turns out because a surprise party is in the offing, allowing Elvis to sing a silly little quasi-folktune ditty, the only sung moment in the film other than the under credits title song. Everything just seems to be a normal family gathering on the Texas prairie.

That all changes once a lone Kiowa brave is seen in the distance one day. At this point, the underlying family dynamic is brought forward, but again in a very realistically low key way, with Pa actually kind of kidding with his errant son for not sharing information Pacer has gleaned about a new chief for the Kiowa. That turns out to be the brave seen before, who trots right up to the Burton farmhouse and introduces himself as Buffalo Horn (Rodolfo Acosta). It’s notable that at this point all of the Burtons, including Ma and Pacer himself, stay safe behind a bolted door, only communicating through a little portal in the wall (where rifles can be aimed to take out any unwanted interlopers).

Buffalo Horn seems to be on a scouting mission of sorts, though for the time being, the Burton clan seems resolutely unwilling to take any obvious sides in any incipient conflict between the Kiowa and the settlers. Later, of course, Buffalo Horn undertakes an actual recruitment of Pacer to become a true Kiowa, but that’s at a point where the divide between the two groups has reached crisis level. By that point, the Kiowa have killed a settler family (in one of the film’s most visceral sequences), and the surviving settlers begin insisting the Burtons need to take a side.

The film plays out in a number of interesting ways, with the Burton family dynamic frankly never seriously threatened (unlike some somewhat similar plot setups in The Unforgiven that do not end with the same results). There are some terrific sequences in Flaming Star, though there’s also a bit of hokiness as well. The latter quality is probably most evident in a meeting between Neddy, Pacer and the Kiowa tribe, where “brother” Pacer is asked to explain why people don’t fall off the bottom of the planet. The former quality is most evident in an absolutely riveting sequence where Neddy, badly wounded in yet another well done scene, chases after the titular star, a sign to the Kiowa of impending death.

While Flaming Star tries to work in a quasi-romance for Elvis courtesy of Barbara Eden, interestingly that aspect is never really played up, and in fact the film does not end with a lover’s clinch and an expected happily ever after. Performances are excellent all around, with del Rio making a great impression despite being saddled with an odd accent. The supporting cast also includes a great turn by Karl Swenson, as the leader of the white settlers who are out to solve their “Kiowa problem,” which ultimately comes to include a “Burton problem.”

Flaming Star Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Flaming Star is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The elements are in great shape from a damage perspective, but colors don't really pop with much vividness, with flesh tones skewing toward brown and the big skies of the film registering in a pale blue at best most of the time. Even the Fox masthead doesn't quite pop with its typical bright yellow hue. Detail is excellent for the bulk of the film, though director Don Siegel and cinematographer Charles G. Clarke opt for day for night techniques for several longer sequences, a gambit that presents obstacles toward any really significant fine detail emerging. There are some odd registration issues that pop up very occasionally as well. Otherwise, this is a solid effort that shows no signs of aggressive digital interference with regard to either sharpening or filtering.

Flaming Star Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Flaming Star features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix as well as a repurposed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround offering. These each are listenable, but each has its own anomalies. There's a slight but noticeable increase in amplitude in the 5.1 iteration, though it also comes with that attendant quasi-phasing quality that sometimes crops up in surround repurposings. While the 2.0 mix is considerably more focused, there's just a slight gurgle of distortion in the midrange that affects some dialogue scenes and Cyril Mockridge's score. The 5.1 mix isn't especially immersive, tending to utilize the surround channels mostly for the score, though occasional sound effects do emanate from discrete channels.

Flaming Star Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original English Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2:36)


• Original Portuguese Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2:36)


• Audio Commentary features Twilight Time regular Lem Dobbs hosted by Nick Redman.


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.

Flaming Star Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Elvis evidently wanted a "serious" acting career, but the relative box office failure of Flaming Star (and, later, Wild in the Country) probably relegated him to the lightweight musical fare that came to typify the rest of his cinematic career. Presley is quite convincing as Pacer, and the rest of the cast is similarly effective. The film is in some ways as interesting as The Searchers, even if it ultimately fails to achieve the same kind of mythic grandeur that the Ford film did. While not a traditional western, there are enough tropes in the film that most longtime western fans should find much to enjoy here. Elvis fans of course will not need much convincing to make this part of their permanent collection. Technical merits of this release are generally very good, and Flaming Star comes Recommended.