IT’S A BIG COUNTRY:
A one time ship captain James McKay (played by Gregory Peck) has left the high seas so he can be with the woman he loves and his soon to be wife Patricia Terrill (played by Carroll Baker). Out in the open plains land goes on for hundreds of miles with nothing else around while the sun beats down on the land. Maybe it’s the heat that causes the two families, Terrill and Hannassey, to continue a long lasting feud. Thinking he is going to get to have a peaceful life with his soon to be wife, James finds himself being caught between the two families as they go to war with each other over a large chunk of property own by the local teacher Julie Maragon (played by Jean Simmons). It’s this piece of land that has the one river that is the source of water and life for the cattle in the area, and both men of both families will go to any lengths to get this water even if it means playing dirty to the other family.

COWBOYS MEET SAILOR:
The Big Country was a very long movie, 2 hours and 46 minutes long in fact. Why it was made to be this long is one of those decisions that should not have been made. It’s because this movie is so long that I became bored with it. After the first hour of watching nothing happen it felt like I had been watching it for 2 hours already. If this movie was cut down to about an hour and a half, no more than that, I would have enjoyed it more and I wouldn’t have become bored with it.
 

The plot is a simple and overused one, 2 families hate each and are looking for anything as an excuse to start a fight with the other and it’s all because of some land that both want. Along comes James, a man who seems weak, cowardly, and unprepared for the harsh world of the west after he backs down from fights, not getting into a fight when being called a liar, and not defending his honor in front of his woman. But of course he’s not, he’s a strong man who has chosen not to fight but when he is pushed he will fight and wins the fight because he is a tough guy. He also is a smart man where he has come up with a way to end the feud between the two families if they would only sit down to listen to his plans. Not the most exciting of plots but one that works and could have been interesting, especially because the plot has a little twist in it between Patricia and James that makes the movie a bit more interesting.
 

But there is the problem with the movie being so long. Because it’s so close to being 3 hours long that the story is dragging during the whole time, even when there are action scenes, it’s drawn out. Cut off about an hour and 20 minutes and this movie would have moved along at a good pace, the fight scenes wouldn’t have been to far apart, and everything that needed to be said and showed would have been. There’s a lot of scenes that are useless in this movie and all they do is take up time. This is my only grip about The Big Country, is the length of it.

As for the rest of the movie, I like. Gregory Peck plays his character of being a guy who will avoid a fight at all costs but at the same time he has this presence of being a tough guy. A few times I thought the character should have been a little more forthcoming with some action but even though the character don’t, Gregory Peck does a good job in making me believe that this is what this character really would do. Though when something is done, the gunfights and shoot outs, I was already bored enough to be done with watching the movie and really didn’t have much interest left in finally seeing how the movie would end. By the time it did end, well I could have cared less about the happy ending. Though Charlton Heston is in this movie he’s not even a main character. His character Steve Leech is just the head ranch hand for the Terrill family and when needs be (which seems like his whole job), being a tough guy to the other family. Other than that when he is on screen his presence is not that strong and his character is uninteresting.

BRINGING 1958 TO 2011:
The Big Country was brought out in 1958, a long time ago for films, and long enough ago where my impression on how this movie was going to look on Blu Ray was not a good one. However, I was wrong in the assumption that the movie was going to look horrible with a lot of noise and grain being seen in the picture quality. In fact this movie looks better than a movie that I just watched on Blu Ray that had came out during the 90’s. How this movie that’s over 60 years old can look this good while one that had came out just over 20 years ago looks so bad is a mystery to me but I can’t complain about end the product this time. The Big Country looks really good for such an old movie. It’s picture quality is sharp, nothing like a true Blu Ray movie being made in the last few years, and it does have some grain in the picture but not much, but overall the quality of this movie on Blu Ray is really nice. The colors are pretty vibrant making the contrast between the dry dusty grounds against the green of the trees stands out nicely. Even the audio levels where at a good level. There’s a lot of yelling at times in this movie so it was nice not to have to do that mad dash to get the remote to turn down the volume when these scenes happen and then turn it back up again to be able to hear what was being said. The Big Country is an exception to putting such older movies on Blu Ray, it looks good and stands out even among some of these newer movies being put on Blu Ray.