The Big Country

Around 500+ Western movies have been seen so far. . . . some of my all time greats are : Red River, Last Train from GunHill, Lawman, The Shootist, Hour of the Gun, Blood on the Moon, 3:10 to Yuma(1957), The Undefeated, High Noon, Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Spoilers, My Darling Clementine, Nevada Smith, Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, Once Upon a time in the West, How the West was Won, Shane, The Alamo, The Far country, Stagecoach, The Bravados, The Culpepper Co. Wichita, The Gunfighter, The Wild Bunch, The Law and Jake Wade, Warlock, The Man who shot Liberty Valance, The man from Laramie, The Naked Spur, The Tin Star, Western Union, The Unforgiven (1960), The Searchers etc etc etc.

Each of these westerns hold its forte on its own : for their production, actors, directors, music, theme, choreography, photography, side kicks, writers, landscape, costumes, locations, screenplay, cinematography, editing et all.

The latest one that I saw was The Big Country [1958] starring Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Chuck Connors and others. It was one of the greatest Western. The film is about land, water rights and power and the influence and power it has over people... It is one of those very few Westerms where the protagonist sees violence as a very unnecessary way to resolve differences.

The last scene sees Gregory Peck and Chuck Connors settling it out the “gentleman style” with a formal duel. After walking off ten paces, both men turn and aim. Chuck Connors fires before the signal, grazing Greg Peck. Greg then slowly and deliberately takes aim. Defenseless, Chuck drops to the ground in terror. Gregory Peck then fires into the dirt. Humiliated, Burl Ives the father spits on his son. As Gregory Peck and the Heroine start to leave, Chuck Connors grabs a gun from a ranch hand, forcing Burl Ives the father to kill his own son.

Another such incident was in Season 9 Episode 1 of Gunsmoke [28 Sept 1963] starring James Arness in Kate Heller. Here a woman shoots her grandson dead over issues concerning crimes committed by the latter.

While no parallels are or should be drawn with Mother India (1957), which itself was a great film, I was but reminded of the last scene where Nargis the mother shoots and kills her own son.]