The Big Land

The Civil War has ended, but residual hatred remains. Texas cattlemen are driving their herds towards Missouri. Chad Morgan (Alan Ladd) is a former Confederate officer leading a cattle drive. Cattle baron Brog cheats him out of a fair price. He is forced to back down and his men blame him for it. He befriends local drunk Joe Jagger (Edmond O'Brien). As he heads home, he encounters farmers who can't get their grain to market and comes up with a mutually beneficial idea.

This sets up an interesting conflict at the beginning. Almost as quickly, the movie drops this idea and moves away. Morgan needs to stay in that town and fight back against Brog. The good early tension is lost and it never truly recovers. The Billy Tyler character is idiotic and he flips so quickly. Alan Ladd is a low energy lead. The story is a lot of little jumps and it feels jumpy. The story is too long and the slow pacing feels the length. Brog is a fine villain, but the other cattle buyers should be more hardened. It's not their first time tangling with Brog. The climatic gunfight is so short that it feels anti-climatic. This western story is too big for its own good.

Director Gordon Douglas, one of Warners' more versatile directors, teamed previously Ladd on 'The Iron Mistress', 'McConnell Story' and 'Santiago'...

Alan Ladd has the familiar assignment of a man of action who has seen enough of killing in the late war... He brings it off in his smoothest style...

Here, he is a six-shooter with no alternative, in a tale about cattlemen and wheat growers, who join forces in building a railroad near their land in an attempt to crush the activities of ruthless cattle-buyers... Ladd is forced to take action against Anthony Caruso and his henchman before settling down to marry the lovely Mayo and rebuild the new town...

Virginia Mayo gives the film its few moments of sensitivity in the scene where she takes out on Ladd her grief over her brother's execution...

Edmond O'Brien is cast as an educated man turned alcoholic... He is a wanderer disgusted by his cowardice, and gunned down when he makes a hopeless attempt to stand up to a heavy, bad man...

Despite a few pretentious moments, 'The Big Land' is, on the whole, an undistinguished star Western..

There is a lot about this sprawling Western that resembles SHANE.

Again, Ladd plays a quiet man who is tired of killing. Here, though, he is not a gunfighter, but rather an experienced soldier who learned to use a hand gun very well.

The real star of this film, though, isn't either hero Ladd or heroine Virginia Mayo, but Edmond O'Brien.

O'Brien's character becomes a parallel to the Stonewall character of Elisha Cook, Jr. in Shane. The similarities are more in what happens with the character than in the character.

However, unlike Stonewall, who is simply a pathetic doomed soul with little input in SHANE, O'Brien is given a chance to eat the scenery here, going from drunk to respected architect to manager of a new town to peace keeper for the town.

The story is his. We even get to see him with family. He begins at the low end of the totem pole, then rises to great achievement, only to find himself in a situation where he must make a terrible decision.

In ways, this film is superior to SHANE, and SHANE is a classic. The bad guys, however, were cloned too much after Jack Palance's Wilson, and therein lies the weakness. There are two sadistic bad men here, and their characters just aren't fresh, and too much like Wilson.

Still, it's got a lot of character, and a lot of characters who make this a top Western.

When Chad Morgan (Alan Ladd) rides home to Texas after the Civil War, he finds another enemy to battle: Brog, a corrupt cattle buyer who forces honest ranchers into financial ruin. Morgan thinks he can thwart Brog by building a town at a new rail spur where cattlemen can safely bring their herds to market. But Brog and his henchmen set out to destroy the town and it may take a gun-blazing showdown to vanquish him.

Familiar yet well-made western with some good characterisations that stars Alan Ladd and Edmond O'Brien, who does some scene chewing as Edmond O'Brien as an alcoholic architect with the know-how to construct the town. Virginia plays his sister who is engaged to another man but falls for Ladd. A unique feature is the town construction element, which isn't covered much in westerns. Can be a bit slow in spots, a bit talky, however it's pleasant viewing and ends with an exciting cattle stampede sequence.

I remind this Gordon Douglas' western not because of Alan Ladd's presence - the good guy, as usual - but because of the villain character, which is also here as usual Anthony Caruso - nearly a cliché.... But I love this kind of role, as was Jack Palance in SHANE vs the same Alan Ladd. No real surprise here, despite the Gordon Douglas's flawless directing. The latest was a true professional anyway...Useless to say that I highly prefered Alan Ladd in ONE FOOT IN HEL, where his charater was so complex and ambivalent.... So, this western deserves to be seen, especially if you are a western buff, you can't miss it; I only gave my opinion, tha's all.