Review of The Big Country (1958) by Stuart K — 06 Feb 2015

Directed by William Wyler (Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Roman Holiday (1953)), written by acclaimed novelist Robert Wilder and partially inspired from the serialised 1957 novel Ambush at Blanco Canyon by Donald Hamilton.

This is an epic western which tells a simple story, but spread over a massive canvas. It might drag in places, but it has a brilliant cast to boot. When sea captain James McKay (Gregory Peck) travels out to the American West to join his fiancée Patricia (Carroll Baker) on her family ranch owned by her father Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), he's hoping for a quiet life.

But he's thrown into a feud between the Terrill family and Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives), whose family have suffered because of poor resources and lack of water, the latter of which comes from Big Muddy, a ranch owned by Patricia's friend Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons).

Once McKay is thrown into the argument. McKay with help from Terrill's foreman, Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) want to settle the feud, once and for all. It could have done with about half an hour shaved off the running time, but this has such beautiful cinematography by Franz F.

Planer, and that epic theme by Jerome Moross. It has a brilliant cast in it, even though Peck feuded with Wyler, but Wyler needn't have worried, he was about to unleash Ben-Hur (1959).