So yesterday I saw...
The Big Country (1958)
A western with high drama on it's mind (they used to just call those Epics, when it was a longer "serious" piece),
The Big Country has some really amazing work from Gregory Peck, Burl Ives, director William Wyler, and probably the most important member of the crew, Northern California. (Specifically along the border of Cali and Nevada, if I had to guess). The whole thing is chock-a-block with wide shots of gorgeous vistas, constantly emphasizing the title and framing the characters and their little dramas as just a part of life out in the country.
That said, it isn't some quaint
Little House on the Prairie shit; the main plot revolves around a blood feud between two ranchers and their families and hired hands, and how a newcomer - Gregory Peck, as a retired sailor come to marry into one of the families in question - upsets the apple cart and tries to stop the inevitable violence. Peck's character McKay is a really different hero for this sort of movie, quiet, genteel, and extremely mature. He constantly downplays macho attempts to needle and upset him, and never feels the need to prove himself to anyone *but* himself. When some local hooligans start hassling him and his bride-to-be, and even lasso and drag him off his wagon, he just plays it off as "hazing the new guy", insisting he saw worse as a sailor. "The first time I crossed the equator, I was keelhauled", the man is an oak.
Atticus Finch shot more than dogs, when he had to.
Not to spoil things, but maybe the most interesting part of the narrative is how it insists the whole conflict is the result of two old men who should just settle up themselves and not get all of these young folks killed following their orders. Given the time this was made, and how much of the cast and crew had to of been veterans of WWII, I can't help but think of the sentiment in that context, whiiiiiich brings me to today, Memorial Day! In America, we honor everyone who died in service of others today; The Big Country honors that sense of loyalty too, particularly in a scene near the end with Charleton Heston riding after his boss/father figure, following him into Hell even when he doesn't agree with him. In this optimistic story though, the old ranchers finally duel one another, and spare everyone else from dying in their private war. (Or I'm thinking about it in the context of the holiday and imagining some things, but who knows).
Unrelated, but this stunt rider was cool as hell.
Wonderful movie, if you like big Technicolor productions with classic framing and a Western aesthetic, or maybe you enjoyed movies like
Duel in the Sun or
Gone With The Wind but wished there was a bit more ass-whippin' (and less racism), check this one out.
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