Something Big

Outlaw Joe Baker (Dean Martin) wants to do something momentous in his life. To further this end, he agrees to acquire a Gatling gun from a fellow outlaw, Johnny Cobb (Albert Salmi), in exchange for any woman Joe can find. (Johnny is starved for female companionship.) Johnny starts "holding up" stagecoaches, looking for women, and one day he snatches Mary Anna Morgan (Honor "Pussy Galore" Blackman). The catch is that she turns out to be the never before seen wife of Joes' longtime nemesis, Cavalry colonel Morgan (Brian Keith).

Amiable Western comedy never really does deliver "something big" itself, but it's easy enough to take for an hour and 49 minutes. The script by James Lee Barrett isn't really that funny, or that witty, but it does have its moments. Director Andrew V. McLaglen has some fun with the material, as does the well chosen cast, who provide the main reason to watch this romp. Critics have excoriated it over the years, but in truth it's not all that tasteless. By and large, the people who perish are lowlife bad guys, and the violence is never particularly gory. Everything is gorgeously photographed by Harry Stradling Jr. The music score by Marvin Hamlish is so ridiculously peppy that it's quite amusing.

Dino is good in the lead, and Keith is a solid straight man in the face of some real buffoonery from the people around him. Lovely ladies Blackman, and Carol White as Joes' would-be fiancée Dover, add to the attractiveness of the scenery. Lots of familiar faces fill out the supporting cast: Ben Johnson, Don Knight, Joyce Van Patten, Denver Pyle, football star Merlin Olsen, Robert Donner, Harry Carey Jr., Judi Meredith, Edward Faulkner, Paul Fix, David Huddleston, and Bob Steele. There's also an endearing canine co-star for Dino who rides in a pouch strapped to his horse.

"Something Big" offers nothing special, but it's reasonably entertaining for the duration.

Six out of 10.

"Something Big" has always gotten a bad wrap from critics, but I have to disagree with them on this one.

This flick is good, fun, western escapism at it's non political correctness best. Just two years later Mel Brooks was hailed for a much raunchier "Blazing Saddles", but for some reason "Something Big" was deemed way over the top in 1971.

Sad, since by this point, after his "Airport" success, Dean was at the tail end of a hectic 25-year film making career. One senses that as Dean prepares to end his outlaw ways in the film, he was saying goodbye to the movie... after a continuous run of at least one film per year since 1949. Indeed, other than the Cannonball Run nonsense in the 80s, Dean would do only two more films... 1973's "Showdown" with Rock Hudson (a good one!) and 1975's crime drama "Mr. Ricco" (a MUST SEE for Dean fans).

Anyway... onto "Something Big". Dean is on his last legs as an outlaw and wants to pull one more "big" event. This one involves getting a gattling gun, trying to get Albert Salmi a wife, putting some Mexican banditos on ice and ... ah, well, it's kind of a rollicking mish mash, but it's a lot of fun on the way!

Dean is really in his element and shines as the anti-hero. Brian Keith is a hoot as a stiff calvary officer and other great supporting cast members like the great Ben Johnson and the above mentioned Albert Salmi make this one a must see. Like Dean's television show of the time, this flick doesn't take itself too seriously, but you know, deep down, the bad guys really aren't too bad and work with their own sort of code of honor. Speaking of honor, Honor Blackmun is good here too.

Other Dean Martin westerns I'd recommend are Rio Bravo, Rough Night in Jericho and especially Showdown. He did others, but The Sons of Katie Elder and Five Card Stud weren't up to par in my opinion-although they are watchable. Only Four For Texas is truly bad.

Too bad this isn't available on video or DVD. The Dean Martin catalog is seriously under represented in video and DVD and I hope that is rectified sometime soon.

Enjoy "Something Big" for what it is... a bit randier version of "Support Your Local Sheriff" type of thing, with a pretty good cast of A list players, good locations and cinematography and a funny script. The deep blue arid skies and dusty locales are truly beautiful and may have been filmed near the Superstition Mts. in Arizona where I once lived, so the movie has a special place in my heart. The best thing I can say about this film is that it made me want to be one of the characters in it, looking for an adventure and finding it in the old west. No cares, no responsibilities, just a desire, once in life to do something really, really big!

I also remember seeing this in the theatre. Dean Martin was pretty cool in this movie, but I remember the best part of the movie was the theme song (by Mark Lindsay), and I had to go out of my way to order a copy of the 45.

I think the only thing that prevents Something Big from being a classic comic western is the awful let down at the end when Dean Martin decides to really do that Something Big he came west from Pennsylvania to do. The shootout at the end if anything is an anti-climax to the wild goings-on that preceded it throughout the movie.

Dean Martin after coming west to seek fame and fortune or at least enough to marry Carol White and support her is the leader of a group of outlaws with Carol's brother Don Knight as his number two. He wants to really make a score, do Something Big before returning to the east and another outlaw Albert Salmi has an interesting proposition for him.

Salmi's been without a woman for way too long now and his sidekick Robert Donner is not one to bring out the love that dare not speak its name. There just ain't too many folks of the female persuasion out in the territory. So if Martin will get him a woman, Salmi can lay his hands on a Gatling Gun to be used in whatever that Something Big scheme will be.

So what does Dino do? He holds up a few stagecoaches and then gets what he considers a proper woman, Honor Blackman famous as Pussy Galore of James Bond fame. The problem there is Dino didn't check her hand for a wedding ring, she's the wife of Brian Keith the commander of the local army post.

Ironically enough this silliness actually works as Brian Keith and chief scout Ben Johnson go searching the territory for Martin and Blackman. The various misadventures of the players goes for most of the film and when Martin does put his big scheme into operation in the last 20 minutes or so of the film, it is so anti-climatic, it's actually a let down.

Something Big is a very funny film for some reason not often shown. All the players do well, but my absolute favorites are Joyce Van Patten, and Judi Meredith the Standish sisters. A pair of frontier widows who really know how to be hospitable to a passing stranger, especially if the stranger is in pants.

Hopefully TCM will get this film and run it and soon.

Sorry markspangler1, but the location wasn't the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, it was filmed just outside Durango, Mexico where lots of western films have been made. Beautiful scenery, mountains and plains, deep blue skies unmarked by jet contrails or fences. Through a chance meeting with Hal Needham, Stunt Coordinator and stunt double for Dean Martin, I was invited on the set during filming. I've always wondered at why it wasn't a more popular film. Great actors, great director in big Andrew McLaglen (the man is BIG!) great scenery and cinematography. My biggest regret was not being on the set when Ben Johnson was on location. Just missed him. He was always one of my favorite actors. Authentic, unpretentious and believable in all his roles. Dean is funny and the dog a real trooper. See this movie if you can.