Not only is the landscape big in this movie, the Stars and the Director are big also. Hollywood didn't let us down in one of it's early successes in bringing an array of major Stars together, all of them put aside their egos and percieved star billings and did justice to a great story. Gregory Peck's role of Jim McKay, the newly retired pragmatic Sea Captain was made for him. We see Peck as most of us have witnessed and enjoyed over the years, quietly doing his own thing, resisting the baddies and getting his point across his way. Charlton Heston's role as the loyal but beleaguered Foreman, Steve Leech, must have had him thinking before accepting the part knowing there were a few around him who had meatier characters to play, but as always gave a reliable performance free of wooden expression we occasionly see in his roles. Jean Simmons as the demure Julie Maragon and Carol Baker as the tempestuous Patricia Terrill were characters suited to them both, especially Baker parading her talents to the three men in her life, McKay, Leech and her Father, Major Henry Terrill, played perfectly by Charles Bickford. The best performances came, I believe from Chuck Connors as the angry Buck Hannassey and Burl Ives playing his Father Rufus Hannassey. The scheming wayward Son was played cleverly by Connors as he snivelled his way through out the Movie until he finally meets his match via his Father. Burl Ives, like the Academy Awards suggests was brilliant! My favourite scene is when he came unannounced to the Major's home while the Terrill family were celebrating Patricia's home coming and impending marriage to Jim McKay. The interaction between them all is magic. The frustrated uninvited guest invites the Major to pick up the gun he has thrown across the room at him, the Major doesn't respond....there's too much to lose here... the defiant Daughter is hoping her Father would respond, the Foreman, ever eager to shield his Boss is restrained, sympathetic looks come from Miss Maragon and the Sea Captain is maybe starting to work out just who are the bad guys. Good stuff!! The Big Country is a great movie, is well directed and has a cast of Stars that compliment their characters and the story. I rank it a step away from The Searchers and that all time classic, Shane.
Review of The Big Country
