Rating of
3/4
Honor is everything!
MovieAddict - wrote on 06/30/12
Gregory Peck plays James "Jim" McKay, a naive outsider and bottled up pacifist, who arrives in the western town to marry adoring blonde Patricia "Pat" Terrill (Carroll Baker) whose wealthy father, Maj. Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford) is obsessed with owning and controlling everything, even at the expense of others. He gets caught in the middle of the longstanding feud between Major Terrill and rival Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). The cause of their fight is over water rights and it's just their luck that the main supply of it happens to be on good looking and unattached school teacher Julie's (Jean Simmons) land. Julie allows Hannassey to use her water for his cattle, and so Major Terrill is trying to buy her land to put him out of business.
Charlton Heston adds a note of menace as the sneering and jealous ranch foreman Steve Leech who tries to humiliate Jim but it turns out that this sea captain is well capable of taking care of himself and contrary to what everybody thinks, he can handle himself in both armed and unarmed combat, too.
An entertaining and satisfying western that comes with a message….honor is everything. "The Big Country" has it all: action, romance, humor, suspense. Worth a look see.
Favorite Quote: “Are you tying knots in my tail?”
