The Big Country

The Big Country has one exceptional element Burl Ives. Everything he touches is improved at least somewhat by being near him. He's great, he makes you understand his character, and even manages to make the father/son relationship in the film rather heartbreaking, despite the son being a pretty one dimensional character. The films struggles in every area outside of Ives. The relationships are very thinly drawn and there direction is obvious the moment you see them. The parts don't help for the most part Peck plays a bland leading man, Charlton Heston plays a bland bully (a role I assume he must have played to be in Wyler's far superior Ben-Hur the next year), Jean Simmons plays a bland "good woman" and Carroll Baker is the bland "bad woman". The performers don't add anything to what is written, but there was almost nothing there to begin with. Charles Bickford's part had potential but he wastes it with an extremely uncharismatic performance. The film seems so oddly misguided in almost every respect. I always go back to a pivotal scene where Bickford's men first stand against his plan to basically cause a massacre. Then for whatever reason when he's riding alone it plays heroic music when his men come back to join him all embracing a pointless demise I guess.
2/5

The Last Hurrah

Interesting to see John Ford to take on a much smaller scale story. Ford acquits himself actually rather well with the more limited scope as does Spencer Tracy in one of his better performances. The film itself I feel though never quite gets into the real grit of the politics, since the stances of Tracy's character never are given that much detail, though it seems as though the film is going for basically a bi-partisan approach. Nevertheless it works in more of the broad strokes as a depiction of a larger than life politician who takes on all comers, with a decent performance to back it up.
3.5/5