A wilful young man contends against his brother for the attention of their religious father while reconnecting with his estranged mother and falling for his brother's girlfriend.
Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Texan rancher Bick Benedict visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. Whilst there he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie, they are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink unfolds across two generations.Written by
Col Needham <col@imdb.com>
When the production moved to Marfa, Texas for location filming, the Victorian mansion set was shipped from California on six train cars. The set was built on the Evans Ranch, 21 miles outside Marfa, and lashed to four telephone poles to hold it upright. It was really just a facade - three walls with no back, no roof and no interior. Interiors at the mansion and other Texas locations were filmed at Warner Bros. in Burbank. See more »
Goofs
When Jett is talking to the oil executives about "cracking Benedict", he is seen from behind with a cigarette in his mouth, but then is seen shortly after from the front with the cigarette in his hand. See more »
Quotes
Luz Benedict:
[Mounted on War Winds]
Suppose you came out here to show me how to run things to. Well let's go!
[She grits her teeth and slaps her sharp spurs into War Winds flanks as hard as she can to enrage the stallion]
See more »
Crazy Credits
There are no cast and crew credits given at the end of the film. Just the words "The End" and a final slide for George Stevens and Warner Bros. See more »
By the time the vital theme of racial intolerance reaches its climax in this plodding melodrama, the audience has endured three hours of stilted dialogue and overblown acting. The film's most dynamic performers are either gone too soon (Mercedes McCambridge) or come too late (Dennis Hopper) to compensate for its morass of mediocrity (Hudson) or ineptitude (Dean). Elizabeth Taylor, enduring some of the worst ageing make-up ever seen in a seriously-intentioned Hollywood movie, somehow emerges with her dignity intact.
It's difficult to make a picture convincing when its story has to traverse as many years as GIANT. SHOWBOAT, also from a Ferber novel, has the same problem. It does, however, have songs to save it. No such luck here. Attempts by composer Dimitri Tiomkin to give grandeur to what's on offer do the reverse: the harder he works, the worse it gets. This is particularly sad when considering William C. Mellor's outstanding photography - by far the greatest pleasure that GIANT has to offer.
It doesn't give me any joy at all to write so disparagingly about a film which deals with such important issues as envy, greed, pride and intolerance. Director George Stevens was clearly a humane man who brought a great sensitivity to his work - his previous movie was, after all, the lean and unpretentiously powerful SHANE. Unfortunately, with GIANT, the intractability of his source material and the unevenness of his cast defeated his good intentions.
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By the time the vital theme of racial intolerance reaches its climax in this plodding melodrama, the audience has endured three hours of stilted dialogue and overblown acting. The film's most dynamic performers are either gone too soon (Mercedes McCambridge) or come too late (Dennis Hopper) to compensate for its morass of mediocrity (Hudson) or ineptitude (Dean). Elizabeth Taylor, enduring some of the worst ageing make-up ever seen in a seriously-intentioned Hollywood movie, somehow emerges with her dignity intact.
It's difficult to make a picture convincing when its story has to traverse as many years as GIANT. SHOWBOAT, also from a Ferber novel, has the same problem. It does, however, have songs to save it. No such luck here. Attempts by composer Dimitri Tiomkin to give grandeur to what's on offer do the reverse: the harder he works, the worse it gets. This is particularly sad when considering William C. Mellor's outstanding photography - by far the greatest pleasure that GIANT has to offer.
It doesn't give me any joy at all to write so disparagingly about a film which deals with such important issues as envy, greed, pride and intolerance. Director George Stevens was clearly a humane man who brought a great sensitivity to his work - his previous movie was, after all, the lean and unpretentiously powerful SHANE. Unfortunately, with GIANT, the intractability of his source material and the unevenness of his cast defeated his good intentions.