Friday, April 18, 2014

THE BIG COUNTRY - A

This movie for me is all about what it means to be a person of character.  I don’t mean as in ‘she is a real character’ but as in ‘she has real character.’  The story is about an East Coast sea captain, played by Gregory Peck, who has to navigate the dangerous waters that exist in and around the family of his Texas fiancé (played by Caroll Baker).  The movie is long at 165 minutes but it is well worth it. One of the gems you will find is Burl Ives as the patriarch of the Hannassey clan.  He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. 

While there are several traditional western elements in the film they admirably serve to expound on the theme of the movie which is about the nature of a person’s behavior (i.e. their character) and how what other people think and do has no bearing on that issue.  When a woman of character (played by Jean Simmons) is introduced, the film gets additional valuable subplots and the theme is shown to apply equally to women as to men.  Let me just come right out and say it (not a spoiler) that Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons play heroes and they would be good role models for anyone!

Produced by Gregory Peck and William Wyler and directed by William Wyler, this film was released October 1, 1958.  Other notable William Wyler films (all of which he was nominated for Best Directing Academy Awards) are Dodsworth (1936, starring Walter Huston), Wuthering Heights (1939, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon), The Little Foxes (1941, starring Bette Davis and winner of Best Director Academy Award for Wyler), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946 and winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director for Wyler and Best Actor for Frederic March and Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell), The Heiress (1949, starring Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson), Roman Holiday (1953, starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, winner of the Best Actress Academy Award), Ben-Hur (1959 and Best Director Academy Award for Wyler among a total of 11 Academy Awards for the film), Funny Girl (1968, starring Barbra Streisand), The Children’s Hour (1961, starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner) and my favorite Mrs. Miniver (1942, starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon and Teresa Wright, for which Wyler won a Best Director Academy Award, Garson won Best Actress and Wright won Best Supporting Actress).

Screenplay by James R. Webb, Sy Bartlett and Robert Wilder, adapted by Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler from Donald Hamilton’s serialized magazine novel Ambush at Blanco Canyon.  Starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Caroll Baker, Charleton Heston, Burl Ives (Winner of Academy Award for Best Suporting Actor and Golden Globe), Charles Bickford, Alfonso Bedoya, Chuck Connors.  Score by Jerome Moross who was nominated for an Academy Award.

A Favorite Quote:  [I am not going to put my favorite quotes in here because they are so integral to the story’s theme that I don’t want to spoil the fun of hearing the actors speak them for you on screen first.]  So here’s one that is good and famous but not my favorite:  “There’s no prettier sight in the world than 10,000 head of cattle… unless it’s 50,000.” [Charles Bickford as Major Terrill].

Genre:  Epic Western, Romance


The next installment in my top ten by alphabet will be Captains Courageous.

No comments:

Post a Comment