The Big Country

• Directed by William Wyler
• August 13, 1958 (Atlantic City)
• Based on the serialized magazine novel Ambush at Blanco Canyon by Donald Hamilton

A New England sea captain in the 1880s arrives at his fiancée’s Texas ranch where he becomes involved in a feud between two families over an important tract of land.

Music can certainly set the tone and The Big Country does just that during the opening credits with its music. It speaks of the grand and expansive Western frontier. Between the music and the distance shot they go hard in showing just how big of a country this big country is. It gets a little annoying and unintentionally comical but that doesn’t hurt the film. This is not a fast-paced movie but it is a long movie. Never feels to go on too long despite its need for displaying the scenery.

I’ve never made any secret of my desire for movies to get to the point. While it is necessary to play into a title I think it’s done a little bit too much. We don’t need more than a shot of a character riding from Point A to Point B against beautiful landscape to understand they are riding through a beautiful landscape and heading somewhere.

It sets the scenario in a pretty overt way-at least for where the character stands. Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) shows up in the beginning and notes to New Englander come to marry his fiancé James McKay (Gregory Peck) that if he wears his particular hat the local jerks are going to take it or shoot it off his head. That pretty much happens when he encounters Buck Hannassey (Chuck Connors). You couldn’t get more on the nose than that. Each represents a faction in the film and demonstrate how each acts.

Leech has a bit of an interest in McKay’s future wife to be but I’m guessing the social snobbery of her father is blocking any potential romance. That is hinted at before the obligatory overt moment though it comes to nothing by the climax other than the opportunity being there.

There are the obligatory moments of “Howdy” in this. For some reason they felt they went on a little too long, and made me chuckle. Not hurtful, but a bit of unintended comedy for me. They also go out of their way to drop the name of the movie in lines of dialogue. You cannot miss that the country is big.

Leech and McKay get off on the wrong foot and Leech keeps going keeps getting off on that foot. The dislike for the two is more is lopsided but definitely there. In a rare supporting role Heston plays to his tough guy image and Peck plays into his more stately and upper class feel that goes with his voice.

Leech is a character that always needs to prove himself to himself or to those around him. There’s always a push to offer up something. McKay on the other hand is quietly demonstrated that he should not have to prove himself to others. People should take him at his word and his actions should be enough validation.

Maj. Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), whose daughter McKay is set to marry, seeks revenge/justice against the Hannassey family for what happened with McKay though McKay has no interest in it. Heck even Leech realizes this may be a step too far. Nice acting giving layers of complexity to what could otherwise be a very simplistic and straightforward Western story. 

Buck Hannassey is a bit on the creepy side. He’s involved in an extremely one-sided romance with local schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons) that owns a very desirable chunk of land for both families called The Big Muddy. One-sided because she’s just being nice to him because he’s dangerous. Everything that’s happening in the relationship is occurring in his head. Her land is valuable because that’s where the local cattle drinks and if one family controls it they will block the other out of spite. A story involving rival families can be exciting but water rights sounds bland yet The Big Country makes it interesting.

I can’t say I’ve seen too much with Jean Simmons in it. What I have seen showed she was never good in at building a romance, but she was good at already being in a romance. There is a beginning of a romance between her and McKay which is part of the reason he decided to buy The Big Muddy and stay in the area.

McKay’s relationship with Patricia Terrill (Carroll Baker), whom he was supposed to marry, didn’t feel plausible. If they framed it more as him looking to advance social status in some way or building his family’s shipping empire I might’ve bought it. Then again he didn’t end up with her anyway.

The general perception of the older Western is that they’re all about the violence and the fighting. That’s certainly true in many cases, but not all of them. The Big Country demonstrates an aversion to violence as the go to when solving a problem or dispute. James McKay is the character that exemplifies that while all the other characters keep engaging in violence and making things worse rather than better.

This is a film with a point. The two families’ confrontation escalates because neither one will back down eventually leading to the destruction of the patriarchs of both. No one is willing to be the bigger person and that is a problem. You can’t keep trying to prove yourself or stand on some kind of pointless principle. You need to learn how to compromise and put differences aside. There is room for everybody if they just choose to get along-in the big country.

Burl Ives as Rufus Hannassey was a bit of a pleasant surprise. He did a little better than expected being the patriarch of the bad family. He was trashy and perhaps not a good person, but he did have a code by which he conducted himself and he expected others to live by.

Burl Ives has some moderately silly looking make up with the eyebrows at the minimum being fake. I’m not sure about the facial hair. I don’t know what they were going for with those eyebrows but he looks like somebody poorly cosplaying James “Miracle Gro” Whitmore.

Despite any of my concerns, The Big Country is a fine Western. More drama than action packed but the important part is it has something to say and says it well without bashing you over the head.