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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 442040" data-attributes="member: 8">The Big Country (1958)[ATTACH=full]59274[/ATTACH]A terrific Hatfields and McCoys style drama, and Gregory Peck proves once again to be one of the most charismatic actors of his generation. There were many powerhouse actors but I think the humour in films works very well for Gregory.  He looks smarter than Cary Grant, but not as shrewd as Robert Mitchum.There are several future soap references in TBC: Charlton Heston  as Ray Krebbs when he was still on good terms with JR, Charles Bickford  and Caroll Baker  as Titus Semple and Constance Weldon who plan to mould Gregory Peck into the man they want him to be, and Chuck Connors as good-for-nothing son  Lenny Hollister who's going to be pushed around and sacrificed by his  feuding father played by Chuck Connors himself in The Yellow Rose.Yankee James McKay enters the macho world of the Wild West, ruled by emotions and impulses. He's also a proud man but he likes to keep his pride to himself, and I'm not sure if I had seen a character like this before. Well at least it looked semi-novel to me.The climax is a little bit too neat and I wish Charlton Heston's character had played a bigger part in it. He looks better as a cowboy than as a Jewish Prince.During one night, James McKay visits a half-naked Steve Leech for an all-out fistfight that goes on forever. It's almost as if they're chained to each other, like The Defiant Ones.It looks funny, and there's also a funny scene involving a Disney horse with an attitude. Gregory Peck's laughter looks ad lib rather than staged, but maybe it was staged and it just looked very spontaneous. It's fine with me either way.I've always avoided this film because I thought it was going to be one of those epic, pompous, self-congratulatory things, but it's very entertaining and I hardly noticed its lengthy running time.It was not quite the same experience when I watched GIANT (1956)[ATTACH=full]59275[/ATTACH] It feels too long and it looks too short. A few crackling scenes (especially the ones with James Dean in it) scattered over a nearly three and half hours story that mostly stays on the surface of things. Had it been tighter, and focused on the drama of the three leads, it may have been a lot better.The story of the Benedict children is so-so although Dennis Hopper plays it very well.I love Liz Taylor but I think she fared better in her post-peak-Hollywood career when she was allowed to unleash her inner-bitch.Here, in Giant, it looks too restrained and pseudo-provocative, like a Scarlett O'Hara.When Benedict (Rock Hudson) wants some privacy to discuss business with the other men she refuses to leave, even though there's nothing in the scene that indicates that she's truly interested. She wants to be there just because she doesn't want to be excluded.But is it really so hard to give your spouse a bit of space and quality time with other people? I hated that scene, it was making conflict for the heck of it, to show Leslie's feistiness when the character and moment didn't call for it.If BIG COUNTRY was a bit leftist ("trashy families matter, too"), GIANT cranks it up a few notches, at the expense of the better oil drama that almost happens in the background.Also, Benedict's sister Luz shouldn't have died because of an off-screen horse accident. That shoulda been a shouting match at the top the stairs, followed by an attempt to slap her pretty sister-in-law but then Luz missteps and tumbles down the stairs, screaming.Anyway, this was all rather disappointing but at least I can check the box of "watched Giant".</blockquote>

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