David Miller helmed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's mournful masterpiece, a hymn to rugged individualism and freedom slowly being strangled to death by voracious urban development. Kirk Douglas, a Korean War vet, is a footloose cowboy who lives most of his life under the stars, going from job to job, and not averse to cutting his way through barbed-wire fences when they get in his way. His uncompromising spirit is severely challenged when he breaks out of jail after a minor offense, and the entire county's police force tries to recapture him before he can leave the territory.