Something Big

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.

Dino must have had fun making this one; lots of great familiar faces in there with him: Brian Keith as the gruff cavalry colonel, Honor Blackman (Bond girl 'Pussy Galore') as the colonel's classy tough-girl wife, Ben Johnson as the laconic cavalry scout, Albert Salmi at his brutish best, Merlin Olsen, Harry Carey Jr., Denver Pyle... and Joyce Van Patten as one of two hilarious man-hungry sisters. It's definitely dated --the 'Indians' especially are pretty embarrassing seen today--, but taken in a light-hearted spirit it's a pretty good ride. I'm sure this is preaching to the choir for those who have fond memories of watching it years ago.

The Marvin Hamlisch score is meant to give it a stylish air, a la Butch and Sundance (we can each judge if we think this succeeds), and Burt Bacharach confected a title song that will either make you smile or cringe, according to your taste. The rating was 'GP', and aside from plenty of casual murder it's not apt to shock too many viewers. The theme of abducting a woman to trade to a sex-starved lowlife (Salmi) for a Gatling gun in order to pillage a Mexican bandido's treasure trove is made to seem somehow sensible, though when the first potential abductee appears and is an amiable and attractive floozy, one is baffled that outlaw Baker (Dino) and his Scottish sidekick (brother of Baker's prissy fiancee) reject her as unsuitable. Well, the plot needed more complications...

Dino's character is supposedly a staid Easterner having a wild fling out West and accomplishing Something Big before settling down to permanent respectability, but come on-- Dino as a staid Easterner?? And we never see any real sign of Mr. Baker's staid side anyway, except in favoring a lady over a floozy (to do a floozy's job). Well, realism isn't the point here, so you might as well just put your brain in neutral and go along with it in the spirit in which it was presented.

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.

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.

RELEASED IN 1971 and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, "Something Big" is a tongue-in-cheek Western starring Dean Martin as aging outlaw, Joe Baker, who unknowingly kidnaps the wife (Honor Blackman) of a cavalry commander (Brian Keith) in order to obtain a Gatling gun from a scumbag gunrunner (Albert Salmi). Ben Johnson plays a scout while Carol White appears as the wannabe fiancé of Baker.

The title refers to 'something big' that Joe Baker is supposed to do before retiring from outlawry with several of the characters citing the line; a quaint idea, but it's not funny and gets old after a while. The opening act is a dud with nothing stimulating happening to draw the viewer into the story. There are several curious props (a skeleton, a dog, bagpipes and a peg leg), but they fail to stir much interest. Things finally perk up in the second half, but not enough to save the movie.

One huge problem is the idea that this antihero we're supposed to like is engaged in something way too unsavory (kidnaping the innocent wife to offer to the odious gunrunner, which amounts to slavery). Martin was able to get away with this type of character in the excellent "Bandolero!" (1968) because his crimes weren't so abhorrent; not so here.

There are some good bits, however, like the two man-hungry women living in the remote wilderness (Joyce Van Patten & Judi Meredith). Nevertheless, it's obvious why "Something Big" has been condemned to cinematic obscurity, never being released to VHS and barely making it to DVD in 2012.

THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 48 minutes and was shot in Durango, Mexico. WRITER: James Lee Barrett.

GRADE: C