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.

Good clean fun with Brian Keith and Dean Martin. Who could ask for more than that? A well-written story line and a musical backdrop that sounds like "Love American Style". With an on-site western camera shoot and good cinematography, it's campy and funny, and thoroughly enjoyable. It is what it is.

Whatever happened to light-hearted western movies like 'Something Big'? Now, whenever Hollywood manages to let a western slip out among the 'Die Hard' ripoffs and teen romances, they are always ponderous, grim, indictments of the murderous whiteman's persecution of indians or sombre stories about tormented gunslingers. By 90's movie standards, nobody in the Wild West seems to have ever cracked a smile. 'Something Big' is a movie from the good old days of politically incorrect westerns. Dean Martin plays a likeable outlaw with plans for something big to finish his career in the west. Plans involving a Gatling gun, a fortune in gold, a kidnapped wife of a cavalry officer, Apaches and Mexican bandidos galore. The movie has a cheerful adventurous mood to it, with all kinds of touches of atmosphere like Dean Martin's pet dog Scruffy, the skeleton propped up in the saloon, and the John Ford-like dialogue between Brian Keith as the cavalry officer and Ben Johnson as his scout. 'Something Big' has almost the same mood as a pirate movie, only set in the west. An exciting story with likeable scoundrels after a fabulous treasure. I remember seeing this on TV as a little kid and wishing my life could be like that of Dean Martin's character in this movie. If you love westerns and do not feel like watching a big important 'message' movie like Dances With Wolves or a revisionist gunfighter story like Unforgiven, you should try to find this film on TV. It is a shame that 'Something Big' never made it to video. Western fans need more fun, guilt-free entertainment. I disagree COMPLETELY with Leonard Maltin's review, and I am sure all other real western fans will too.

Agreeable but average slice of the Wild West , it deals with two bandoleros who run into trouble with their cavalry counterparts . Dean Martin wants to do 'something big . When he needs a Gatling gun to accomplish this, he seeks out a black marketeer (Albert Salmi) . The price he wants for the gun? A woman! . So Baker (Dean Martin) along with his colleague (Don Knight) abduct a woman (Honor Blackman) off of the stagecoach, only to find that she is the spouse of the commandant (Brian Keith) of the local Cavalry detachment .Things get further complicated when a girl named Dover McBride (Carol White) goes West as he promised to do four years earlier. Sooner or later, Baker will find the right girl. And when he does, he'll swap her for a machine gun. And do something big.Everybody wants to do something big once in his life. It's just that most people don't have to hold up a stagecoach, steal a girl, and swap her for a gun to do it.Baker has the biggest, fastest, gun in the West. See him use it on anything that moves!

A spirited spoof Western with noisy action , shootouts , Indian attacks and humor . The plot is plain and simple , a likeable rogue Bandido kidnaps the wife of a cavalry commander in order to exchange her for a Gatling gun that's being sold by a gun runner . This swinging Western contains some inspired patches of dialogue provided by Western expert writer James Lee Barrett . A gruesome symptom of the death of Western was the ¨Comedy Western¨ sub-genre , a confused , ironical , messy trendy that flourished briefly in the late 60s and early 70s . Occassionaly this sub-genre produced the odd bizarre gem , notably ¨Cat Ballou¨ by Elliott Silversein , ¨Alelujah¨ by John Sturges , ¨There was a crooked man¨ by Joseph L. Mankiewicz , ¨Texas across the river¨ by Michael Gordon , ¨The Good Guys and the Bad Guys¨ by Burt Kennedy , but this was one of the less honorable efforts . Here Dean Martin plays an outlaw in town to give his retiring adversary , Cavalry Colonel Brian Keith , a last , leadenly ironic run for his money . Dean Martin's lazy charm makes him a sympathetic rogue . Martin starred various film for the famous ¨Rat Pack¨, but he also performed various Westerns , such as : Showdown , Five card stud , Bandolero , Round night in Jericho , Texas across the river , Sons of Katie Elder , 4 for Texas and the best : Rio Bravo . There's even room for two English actresses such as the then-trendy starlet Honor Blackman of Goldfinger and Carol White as the beautiful girl who shows up and has come to force Baker to marry her and return east . Typically for the genre, a few known support actors appear , they are around to add incongruity as well as some richly comic lines to deliver , such as : Don Knight , Ben Johnson , Albert Salmi , Merlin Olsen , Robert Donner , Joyce Van Patten , Denver Pyle , Judi Meredith ,David Huddleston , Edward Faulkner , Paul Fix , David Huddleston , Bob Steele and Harry Carey Jr. Some of them are character actors from the world of McLaglen's mentor , John Ford .

It contains a catching and attractive musical score by Marvin Hamlisch . Atmospheric and evocative cinematography in Technicolor and color de Luxe by Harry Stradling J.R , Burt Kennedy's regular . This stirring tale of man bandoleros was professionally directed by Andrew McLagen , , though in fits and starts . He was the son of Ford's stock company stalwart, Victor McLagen. He was born in London but grew up around Hollywood, where his father often took him on movie sets. He learned the art of directing from greats like John Ford, who eventually gave him a job as assistant director on The Quiet man (1952). He holds the distinction of directing the most episodes of Gunsmoke (1955) and of Have gun Will travel (1957) . Being one of the few directors to have directed both Clint Eastwood and John Wayne , including Undefeated (1969) and Chisum (1970). He was a prolific craftsman who made all kinds of genres , such as : Wartime : Dirty dozen next mission, Sea wolves, Breakthrough, Wild geese, The Devil's brigade . Action adventure genre : Sahara , Ffolkes , Mitchell, On wings of eagles . And Western : Shenandoah, The way west , The rare breed, Bandolero, The last hard men , The Blue and the Gray and The shadow riders again with Katharine Ross. The flick will appeal to Dean Martin fans. Ratinf : 5.5/10 . Passable and acceptable . Well worth watching.

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.