The Big Country

US (1958): Western

The Big Country, directed by William Wyler, is a lavish, over-sized western with a "B"-picture plot. Gregory Peck plays a seafaring man who heads west to marry Carroll Baker, the daughter of rancher Charles Bickford. Bickford is currently embroiled in a water-rights feud with covetous Burl Ives, so both he and his daughter are hoping that Peck can take care of himself. But Peck, who doesn't belief in fisticuffs, appears to be a coward, especially when challenged by Bickford's cocksure foreman Charlton Heston. The far-from-cowardly Peck decides to distance himself from the machismo overload at the Bickford spread, settling for a romance with headstrong schoolmarm Jean Simmons, whose water-rich lands are being fought over by the two warring ranchers. When Jean is kidnapped by Ives' no-good son Chuck Connors, Peck decides to take action. He quickly proves to one and all that it is Connors who is the only yellow-belly in these parts; the feud is settled not by the second-generation combatants but by Bickford and Ives, who end up killing each other.

In the old Republic days, The Big Country would have been on and off the screen in 70 minutes, but all-star films in the 1950s had to be blockbusters or they couldn't make back their cost. The best scene in Big Country is the least overblown; When Heston insists upon duking it out with Peck, the latter agrees to do so only if no one else is around (he has nothing to prove to anyone) -- then proceeds to whale the tar out of Heston, in a lengthy bout that is as crude and clumsy as any real, non-Hollywoodized fistfight. Whenever The Big Country threatens to lose its self-styled grandeur, the film relies heavily upon its classic musical score by Jerome Moross. (Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide)

 Use this link to view the original theatrical trailer for The Big Country on TCM.com.

2 nominations, 1 Award