It's a Big Country (1951)

Directors:

Clarence Brown
Don Hartman

Writers:

Edgar Brooke (story) (segment 1)
Ray Chordes (segment)

Release Date:

20 November 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

The story, told in eight episodes, covers different facets of the American Spirit, from racial and religious...

Plot Keywords:

Episodic Structure | Beautiful Woman | Americana | Patriotism

Cast

Ethel Barrymore	...	Mrs. Brian Patrick Riordan
Keefe Brasselle	...	Sgt. Maxie Klein
Gary Cooper	...	Texas
Nancy Davis	...	Miss Coleman
Van Johnson	...	Rev. Adam Burch
Gene Kelly	...	Icarus Xenophon
Janet Leigh	...	Rosa Szabo Xenophon
Marjorie Main	...	Mrs. Wrenley
Fredric March	...	Joe Esposito
George Murphy	...	Mr. Callaghan
William Powell	...	Professor
S.Z. Sakall	...	Stefan Szabo
Lewis Stone	...	Church sexton
James Whitmore	...	Mr. Stacey
Keenan Wynn	...	Michael Fisher

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Goofs:

Factual errors: When the census taker asks Ethel Barrymore her name, she replies "Mrs. Brian Patrick Riordan" and he writes it down. Always with censuses, a woman's given name is entered.

Movie Connections:

Edited into A Letter from a Soldier (1951)

The U.S.A. of the Cold War

I doubt if a film like It's A Big Country could be made in and about the America of post Vietnam and Watergate. A whole lot of the clichés presented here just aren't bought any more by large segments of the population. For whatever it's worth the film is a presentation of what we thought about ourselves in 1951.

It's a film with several different segments, some serious some pretty funny about every day Americans in all walks of life, in all parts of the then 48 states.

The two I liked best were those that ironically starred the two men who were not MGM contract players, Gary Cooper and Fredric March. Gary Cooper plays a Texas cowboy talking about his state and disillusioning us with a tongue in cheek delivery about the way Texans and Texas are perceived by the other 47 states. Of course Cooper's humor and the whole premise behind this segment was that Texas was our largest state in land mass. That ended in 1959 when Alaska became the 49th state, still it's the highlight of It's A Big Country.

Fredric March plays an Italian American father who's opposed to his son, Bobby Hyatt, getting needed glasses even after teacher Nancy Davis tells him it's necessary. He's got some old world ideas that need a bit of adjustment. March plays the role with dignity never do you feel he's a caricature.

Another episode that is nicely done involves Gene Kelly, Greek American boy falling for Janet Leigh, Hungarian American girl. They've got a problem though, her father played by Hollywood's number one Hungarian S.Z. Sakall. In the past 20 years we've seen a whole lot of stories about ancient ethnic hatreds coming out of Eastern Europe. Sakall is carrying some old grudges against Greeks though he really isn't sure why. Point being that here in America you're supposed to leave that all behind. That segment is still very much relevant.

Could we make It's A Big Country today? Not at this time, maybe at some future point when we've reached a national consensus that despite all our problems, America's a pretty good place after all.