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The Big Country - 3/4
I’m onto the tail end of my Western viewing, I saved all of the 2+ hour films for this moment.
Gregory Peck is one of, if not the actual best ever at playing straight laced guys with serious steel behind the veneer. One of my favourite films of all time is “The Million Pound Note” and it’s because Gregory Peck is relentlessly decent and upright throughout. In his western films he has the same quality and it is what separates him from contemporary Western stars. Randolph Scott and Roy Rogers always play the good guy with the heart of gold, but Peck makes it a credible enterprise by having the eloquence to deliver a phenomenal line or speech between fisticuffs and high drama.
As far as the film goes it has the most predictable love story ever put to screen besides some of the most entertaining western shenanigans. Burl Ives steals the film with a “yeah we are low class but we have morals” character that makes it an almost Shakespearean experience. The good is faultless, the bad is evil but the grey area is pure entertainment and it elevates the film from formulaic to fantastic.
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