Rating: 
Summary: Atticus Finch goes West
Review: This is a sprawling, glorious saga that will be appreciated by people who don't even like the Western genre. With fabulous cinematography, an excellent script, and two of my favorite actors, it's a film I never tire of watching.
Gregory Peck is the sea captain with principles who goes west to meet his future bride, only to find feuds and fighting, and some lawless varmints who need his "non violent" ways of resolving territorial issues. He is terrific as James McKay, who is sort of an Atticus Finch in boots, and looks mighty fine as well.
Charlton Heston has the smaller part as Leech, a foreman who is seething with jealousy and obeys the orders of his unscrupulous boss (rancher Terrill, played with subtle menace by Charles Bickford) as he yearns for his daughter. Heston is brilliant as this rather complex character, and would a year later star in director William Wyler's next epic, "Ben Hur", which is perhaps my all-time most viewed and enjoyed film.Both female leads are wonderful, and are portrayed with enormous strength; Jean Simmons, with her luminous eyes is the schoolteacher, and Carroll Baker is the tough daughter of rancher Bickford, and is too much like her daddy to make a suitable bride for Peck.
Among the many strong performances in the supporting parts are Burl Ives, and received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his gnarly old Rufus, Chuck Connors is his bad to the bone son, and Alfonso Bedoya, is a delight as Ramon, who along with a horse named "Old Thunder", provides some of the humor in the film.
The score by Jerome Moross is lovely (and received an Oscar nomination) and the cinematography by Franz Planner spectacular. The film was shot in the Yuba and San Joaquin Counties in California, as well as canyon country in Chinly, Arizona, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. If you like a good screen fight like I do, this has a great one, "mano a mano" between Peck and Heston; it initially has no music, just the pounding of the fists and the men gasping for breath, and is very effective.
Romance, drama, and lots of action make this a film that appeals to many, and is suitable for the whole family. Total running time is 165 minutes.
Rating:
Summary: Its a big country!
Review: The Big Country is one of the best westerns ever made in my opinion. It's unique in that it doesn't have all of the shoot em' up good guy against bad guy spagetti western flavor. It focuses more on the different people and their surroundings, and also how their outlooks on life effect everything else.
The thing that really sets this movie apart from a lot of westerns I have seen is the sheer magnitude in which it is shot. How "big" of a country that they film it to be. While watching this movie you feel like your actually there, you feel the immensity of it.
Along with the good photography and amazing characters/actors, the music really kicks the movie into another level entirely. The musical score is powerful and helps set the mood of the entire movie.
Set asside a couple of hours and enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Chick Flick In Disguise-My Practical Use Review
Review: When my husband bought this movie for me, I was a little bit disappointed because I am not a fan of westerns. To my pleasant surprise, I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. It has all the makings of a good girls' night movie: A handsome male lead, a disagreeable woman who gets her just dues, a sweet girl-next-door with whom one can identify, formal dresses, and a happy ending. In addition, the movie is full of great lines that you and your friends can allude to in every day life. (Ramon, You're an Idiot!)
Single or married ladies, buy this movie. Keep it on the shelf until the next time you and your guy want to watch something together. Then threaten to put in Sense and Sensibility for the tenth time, and after he protests, concede to watch The Big Country. You'll both enjoy it and you'll get hubby/boyfriend points in the end.
Rating:
Summary: When the love inspires you to follow your bliss !
Review: Gregory Peck is a simple man who wishes establish in peace . He want to marry with the daughter of a marrow minded rancher. This future father in law is embroiled in water rights feud . Obviously this rancher and his daughter expect from Peck his accomplishment but he decides to retire from this conflict . And the twist of fate will turn him in a very and delicate position in that sense .
He will fall in love again with another woman a headstrong schoolman Jean Simmons she will embody all the goals he is seeking and this rapport will carry to engage it her , so when the time is over she will be kidnapped by a mob of his old and ancient father in law , he will feel the hero call and at last! will decide for fighting and he will hard to kill in this last duel .
Intelligent western where the focus is about the values crisis inmersed in the middle of the far west but it is a clear metaphor about the signs of those times .
A triumph punch for Burl Ives acting and a great Western in the masterful hands of William Wyler.
Rating:
Summary: He came from the sea
Review: Two men, Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford) and Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives), each the head of their respective clans, feud over water rights. The major has a daughter (Carroll Baker) that has fallen in love with a sea captain James McKay (Gregory Peck.) James McKay's father owns a shipping company. This looks like a perfect match.
Shortly but surely we see on insight to the man about to be married. At the same time he gets a good glimpse of the major and Rufus Hannassey. It does not take us long to size up the situation. James refused to play the game. He won't get mad at hazing, won't write the wild hors on their time, and he won't get lost (I suspect he can calculate reveres azimuth.) And this is a big country.
There are many other notable characters in this movie including the owner of "the Big Muddy" (Jean Simmons) where the water is. The Majors right hand man (Charlton Heston). And what is a western with out the idiot son (Chuck Connors).
Pay attention to the love interest and the music.
This movie would give a Greek tragedy a run for its money.
Will Major Henry and Rufus Hannassey settle their differences or will the settle James McKay's hash?
Rating: 
Summary: William Wyler's 'Anti-Western' Long, but Rewarding...
Review: THE BIG COUNTRY, the rocky collaboration of co-producers William Wyler and Gregory Peck, is a big, expensive deconstruction of the 'classic' western genre and values, placing an Eastern intellectual (Peck) in the midst of them, questioning their validity. The film's sheer size ultimately defeats director Wyler's goal, but what emerges is still a rip-roaring drama, with terrific performances by Oscar-winner Burl Ives, Chuck Connors, Charlton Heston, and Charles Bickford.
Eastern ship captain James McKay (Peck) arrives in a GIANT-like Western town to marry Patricia Terrill (Carroll Baker), whose father (Bickford) is a major landowner in the area. He immediately draws the ire of top hand Steve Leech (Heston) when he refuses to discard an Eastern-style hat (Leech obviously is Patricia's jilted lover, as well, setting the stage for an eventual physical confrontation between the two men). Patricia is beautiful, but shallow and temperamental, unlike her more mature, sensitive friend, schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), and one wonders what McKay saw in her to make him propose!
En route to the Terrill ranch, McKay and Patricia are intercepted by a wild, acrobatic gang of cowboys, led by Buck Hannassey (Connors), son of the Terrill's mortal enemy and biggest rival, Rufus Hannassey (Ives). After a long chase/trick riding demonstration (punctuated by one of the film's many great musical themes, by composer Jerome Moross), Patricia's venomous reaction to Buck's escapades leads to McKay's being manhandled, roped, and roughed up, a bit. While McKay is forgiving, Col. Terrill (Bickford) uses the incident to invade the Hannassey ranch in force, and then ride into town, pistol-whipping Hannassey men (Buck hides to protect himself).
Thus begins McKay's education of 'The Way of the West', and his rebellion against it's traditions. He refuses to ride a wild old mustang in front of all the ranch hands and humiliate himself (the 'initiation' of the ranch), later breaking the stallion on his own. He navigates the huge Terrill estate with a compass, then refuses to publicly fight the disbelieving Leech, who'd led a search party to find him (McKay later takes Leech on, before dawn, when there would be no audience, then questions what purpose the fistfight served...an act that forces Leech to consider how trivial and out-of-kilter his way of life is). He refuses to endorse the Terrill/Hannassey feud, but buys the 'Big Muddy', a water-rich property, owned by Julie, which both sides covet, offering the water to everyone (which costs him Patricia's hand).
McKay's intellect and compassion reveals just how petty and bigoted both Col. Terrill and Rufus Hannassey are, but like two aging bulls, the pair inevitably march towards a deadly showdown by the film's climax, as futile and meaningless as McKay and Leech's earlier brawl. A 'Blood Feud' must be settled in blood, even when common sense proves it ridiculous.
Epic in scope, with the Wyler 'style' clearly evident in pacing and characterization, THE BIG COUNTRY may have misfired as an 'Anti-Western', but is still an entertaining, engaging production, and certainly deserves a place in any film fan's collection.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely stunning music. Peck and Heston in their prime
Review: Clearly, the most enduring "character" of this larger than life western is the score by Jerome Moross. Regularly named as one of the ten best movie scores of all time, it's hard to imagine that it lost the Oscar in 1958 for Best Score to "The Old Man and the Sea!" Who remembers the music to THAT?????? Peck and Heston are in their primes here, and Heston courageously took a role that didn't make him heroic every minute..a much more complex and conflicted character than most he has played. Gregory Peck's style and grace were never more evident than in this role. For 1958, the female roles in this movie were ahead of their time. Their roles drive the story, they are not just ornamentation along with the big skies and canyons. But again, the star of this movie is the incredible score. If you can find the boxed set soundtrack release, covet it!
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