BIG JACK marks the end of an era. It is the seventh of seven films that Wallace Beery made with frequent costar Marjorie Main. It also happens to be Beery's motion picture swan song...he died a few days after its release in April 1949.
Mr. Beery's success as an actor stretched back to the early 1900s, when he began working on the stage. By the mid-1910s he was appearing on screen in silent comedies. He was always a character actor, but he was one of those rare characters who became a star.
Producer Irving Thalberg signed him to a long-term contract at MGM in 1930 and cast him as one of the leads in the bleak prison drama THE BIG HOUSE. Beery quickly became one of the studio's most commercially successful and highest paid personalities. Though there were occasional loan outs, he appeared in at least one big budget MGM film each year from 1930 to 1949. He even earned an Oscar along the way.
By the later stage of Mr. Beery's tenure at Metro, he had settled into the types of roles that were his bread and butter. Typically, he played a blustering fool whose antics often led him astray, even if his heart was still in the right place. Middle-aged counterparts of the female variety were cast alongside him in these vehicles-- strong actresses like Marie Dressler, Janet Beecher and Marjorie Main. These gals kept him in like in case he got wild or too big for his britches!
As the title character Big Jack, Beery is placed into a frontier scenario. He is once again playing a blowhard with a tender side. This time he's the leader of a gang of outlaws in Maryland circa 1802.
While out robbing, he crosses paths one day with a doctor (Richard Conte) who is using corpses for medical research. Conte thinks conducting experiments on the dead will help save the living when he has to operate on them. Of course, law-abiding folks in the region don't see it that way. They regard vivisection as a gruesome act, and they want Conte strung up and hanged.
Beery intervenes just as Conte is about to be lynched by an angry mob. They soon become quite chummy. Conte also becomes involved with the attractive daughter (Vanessa Brown) of an influential politician (Edward Arnold).
While Conte's busy with his forensic practice, Beery abducts Miss Brown and brings her to Conte in order to speed up the courtship process. At first, Brown is rather reluctant to get cozy with Conte, thinking he put his pal Beery up to the kidnapping. But when she learns it was not his idea, she softens and begins to fall for him.
The subplot with Conte and Brown provides the romantic angle of the story. But most of the action is a hodgepodge of slapstick humor, medical drama and western. Contemporary critics had trouble reconciling the different aspects of the story, and so did some of the audience.
Supposedly the script was intended for Spencer Tracy, who chose to make the much more highbrow EDWARD MY SON instead. It would certainly have been a lot different in tone with Tracy in the lead instead of Beery. But at least with Beery, you know you'll be amused for an hour and half without the pretentiousness that this is anything more than mainstream studio entertainment.
Beery's character dies at the end of the film, and I think that's a rather fitting final note for the actor. He was only 64 years old at the time. How long would he have remained a star at MGM? Would he have transitioned to television? We'll never know the answers to those questions. But we do know that he left behind a lasting contribution. From THE BIG HOUSE to BIG JACK there are a lot of memorable Wallace Beery performances to enjoy.
Mr. Beery's success as an actor stretched back to the early 1900s, when he began working on the stage. By the mid-1910s he was appearing on screen in silent comedies. He was always a character actor, but he was one of those rare characters who became a star.
Producer Irving Thalberg signed him to a long-term contract at MGM in 1930 and cast him as one of the leads in the bleak prison drama THE BIG HOUSE. Beery quickly became one of the studio's most commercially successful and highest paid personalities. Though there were occasional loan outs, he appeared in at least one big budget MGM film each year from 1930 to 1949. He even earned an Oscar along the way.
By the later stage of Mr. Beery's tenure at Metro, he had settled into the types of roles that were his bread and butter. Typically, he played a blustering fool whose antics often led him astray, even if his heart was still in the right place. Middle-aged counterparts of the female variety were cast alongside him in these vehicles-- strong actresses like Marie Dressler, Janet Beecher and Marjorie Main. These gals kept him in like in case he got wild or too big for his britches!
As the title character Big Jack, Beery is placed into a frontier scenario. He is once again playing a blowhard with a tender side. This time he's the leader of a gang of outlaws in Maryland circa 1802.
While out robbing, he crosses paths one day with a doctor (Richard Conte) who is using corpses for medical research. Conte thinks conducting experiments on the dead will help save the living when he has to operate on them. Of course, law-abiding folks in the region don't see it that way. They regard vivisection as a gruesome act, and they want Conte strung up and hanged.
Beery intervenes just as Conte is about to be lynched by an angry mob. They soon become quite chummy. Conte also becomes involved with the attractive daughter (Vanessa Brown) of an influential politician (Edward Arnold).
While Conte's busy with his forensic practice, Beery abducts Miss Brown and brings her to Conte in order to speed up the courtship process. At first, Brown is rather reluctant to get cozy with Conte, thinking he put his pal Beery up to the kidnapping. But when she learns it was not his idea, she softens and begins to fall for him.
The subplot with Conte and Brown provides the romantic angle of the story. But most of the action is a hodgepodge of slapstick humor, medical drama and western. Contemporary critics had trouble reconciling the different aspects of the story, and so did some of the audience.
Supposedly the script was intended for Spencer Tracy, who chose to make the much more highbrow EDWARD MY SON instead. It would certainly have been a lot different in tone with Tracy in the lead instead of Beery. But at least with Beery, you know you'll be amused for an hour and half without the pretentiousness that this is anything more than mainstream studio entertainment.
Beery's character dies at the end of the film, and I think that's a rather fitting final note for the actor. He was only 64 years old at the time. How long would he have remained a star at MGM? Would he have transitioned to television? We'll never know the answers to those questions. But we do know that he left behind a lasting contribution. From THE BIG HOUSE to BIG JACK there are a lot of memorable Wallace Beery performances to enjoy.