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Last night flipping channels, I stumbled upon an old favorite. A film that I hadn't seen in many years and only on commericial television.
My mother used to entertain me by describing the movies she'd seen as a child. She'd tell me about them much as one might re-tell a fairy or folk tale. So that when I finally saw the films myself, it would be akin to seeing an adored story come to life. One of her all time favorites was an old 1958 Western entitled The Big Country, which at the time had been shown in a new medium, technocolor and on a wide screen, cinemascope. Until last night I never really saw the version she told me about. Sure I'd seen it on the Saturday Night Western as a child on our local UHF station, but it was edited to fit our small square screen and for commercials - limiting the scope of the film and cinemagraphic effect. Last night on PBS it was shown in letter box format without commericials.
The Big Country directed in 1958 by William Wyler and adapted from the Donald Hamilton novel by Jessayme West, starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carol Baker, Charlton Heston, Chuck Conners, Charles Bickford and Burl Ives, takes place in the 1800s, and is about a former sea captain who accompanies his fiance, Patricia Tyrell, back to her family ranch where he gets imbroiled in a war over water rights between two rival families - the rich and cultured Tyrell clan and the poor rough-cut Hennessey clan.
The main character is the land - set in the ranch lands of southeastern California, with the broad plains, and unforgiving sun, vast and unlimited without fences, many trees or much water. It is a "Big Country" we are told over and over. So big, a man can get lost inside it. Half-way through, we begin to understand why. The story's main thematic arc is about a fight between two old men over a land so vast that neither can possibily see all of it.
But like all good stories, this one is about much more than that - the central character, Jim McKay, is put through a series of tests, each demonstrating a character point but doing it in a subtle manner and against type. If you are a reader of romance novels or westerns, the East Coast Dude or Fish out of Water - can't handle the rough and tumble west. He is the interloper. The girl he romances is really in love with the guy she grew up with on the ranch. He is the fool to be shown-up by her childhood pal - the rancher, uneducated but tough, with a thorough knowledge of the land. And the schoolmarm? She is a damsel, knows little of the West and is horrified by violence. Then there are the bad-guys or men in black hats - the rough and tumble ruffians, who are slaughtered in a shoot-out. In most of the B-Westerns starring John Wayne and his co-horts, the city dude has to be taught the hard way that the West is hard and tough and violent.
( spoilers lie ahead. )
My mother used to entertain me by describing the movies she'd seen as a child. She'd tell me about them much as one might re-tell a fairy or folk tale. So that when I finally saw the films myself, it would be akin to seeing an adored story come to life. One of her all time favorites was an old 1958 Western entitled The Big Country, which at the time had been shown in a new medium, technocolor and on a wide screen, cinemascope. Until last night I never really saw the version she told me about. Sure I'd seen it on the Saturday Night Western as a child on our local UHF station, but it was edited to fit our small square screen and for commercials - limiting the scope of the film and cinemagraphic effect. Last night on PBS it was shown in letter box format without commericials.
The Big Country directed in 1958 by William Wyler and adapted from the Donald Hamilton novel by Jessayme West, starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carol Baker, Charlton Heston, Chuck Conners, Charles Bickford and Burl Ives, takes place in the 1800s, and is about a former sea captain who accompanies his fiance, Patricia Tyrell, back to her family ranch where he gets imbroiled in a war over water rights between two rival families - the rich and cultured Tyrell clan and the poor rough-cut Hennessey clan.
The main character is the land - set in the ranch lands of southeastern California, with the broad plains, and unforgiving sun, vast and unlimited without fences, many trees or much water. It is a "Big Country" we are told over and over. So big, a man can get lost inside it. Half-way through, we begin to understand why. The story's main thematic arc is about a fight between two old men over a land so vast that neither can possibily see all of it.
But like all good stories, this one is about much more than that - the central character, Jim McKay, is put through a series of tests, each demonstrating a character point but doing it in a subtle manner and against type. If you are a reader of romance novels or westerns, the East Coast Dude or Fish out of Water - can't handle the rough and tumble west. He is the interloper. The girl he romances is really in love with the guy she grew up with on the ranch. He is the fool to be shown-up by her childhood pal - the rancher, uneducated but tough, with a thorough knowledge of the land. And the schoolmarm? She is a damsel, knows little of the West and is horrified by violence. Then there are the bad-guys or men in black hats - the rough and tumble ruffians, who are slaughtered in a shoot-out. In most of the B-Westerns starring John Wayne and his co-horts, the city dude has to be taught the hard way that the West is hard and tough and violent.
( spoilers lie ahead. )
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