Welcome to "Saturday Night of the Movies."

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's film is the epic western, "The Big Country," released by United Artists in 1958.

William Wyler directed and co-produced the movie, with Gregory Peck, who also stars.

The other leading actors are Jean Simmons, Charlton Hesston, Carol Baker, and Burl Ives, with support from Charles Bickford, Chuck Connors, and Alfonso Bedoya.

James McKay, a former sea captain, arrives by stagecoach in a small western town.

McKay has had a whirlwind romance with his fiance, Patricia Terrill in Baltimore, and is now joining her on her father's vast cattle ranch, to prepare for their wedding.

When he disembarks from the stage, McKay becomes the object of ridicule from the locals, because of his eastern hat, suit, and manners.

He's met by Steve Leech, foreman at the Terrill Ranch, who advises him to conform to local customs, to save himself trouble.

Leech takes McKay to the home of Julie Maragon, the local school mistress, where Patricia is waiting, and gives him a warm welcome.

But on their way to her father's ranch, McKay and Patricia are harassed by a group of men from the Hennessy Ranch, owned by Rufus Hannassey, a longtime rival, and sworn enemy of Patricia's father, Major Terrill.

At the head of the gang is Rufus's eldest son, Buck Hannassy.

The men mock McKay, and rope him, dragging him back and forth while jeering at him.

Patricia is shocked when he doesn't fight back, but McKay makes light of the situation, saying the men were just having fun, and that he experienced far worse while at sea.

McKay's problems as an outsider continue at the Terrill Ranch.

When Steve Leech, and the other hands, attempted goad him into riding a bronco named Old Thunder, McKay refuses Back at the lavish Terrill mansion, McKay presents the major with a match set of dueling pistols.

When the major learns about Buck Hannassey's harassment of McKay and Patricia, he leads a group of his men out to Rufuss Hannassey's place, to take revenge.

While they're gone, McKay asks a ranch hand, Ramon, to bring out Old Thunder.

After many tries, and many painful falls, McKay manages to tame the horse, and ride him.

But his calm and methodical approach to seemingly impossible problems, may not do much good when the major's attack on the Hannassy Ranch, threatens to spark a range war between the two families.

William Wyler was born July 1st, 1902, into a Jewish family in Alsace, then a part of Germany.

He immigrated to the United States in 1921, after being hired by his mother's cousin, Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures.

After a few years in New York, Wyler moved to Hollywood in 1925, and began directing silent pictures.

In 1929, he directed "Hell's Heroes," a Western starring Charles Bickford, Universal's first sound picture to be filmed on location.

Over the course of a 45-year career, Wyler was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, a record 12 times, beginning with "Dodsworth," in 1936.

He won the Oscar three times, each time for a film that also won Best Picture.

The first was "Mrs. Miniver," in 1942, followed by "The Best Years of our Lives," in 1946, and "Ben-Hur," in 1959.

While working for Universal Pictures, and later for Paramount, Wyler vainly sought ways to gain creative control over his films.

In 1956, he entered a joint production deal with his good friend, Gregory Peck, to make a film out of Donald Hamilton's "Ambush at Blanco Canyon," a serialized story that ran in the "Saturday Evening Post," in 1957.

Wyler's older brother Robert wrote the initial screenplay adaptation with Jessamyn West, author of the 1945 novel, "The Friendly Persuasion," which was adapted for film under William Wyler's direction, in 1956.

Other versions of the screenplay were written by Leon Uris, author of 1958's "Exodus," adapted into a 1960 movie directed by Otto Preminger, and by Robert Wilder, whose 1942 novel "Flamenco Road," became a film directed by Michael Coriz in 1949.

The final screenplay for "The Big Country," was written by James R. Webb and Sy Bartlett, with all the others receiving screen credit, except Uris, whose version strayed too far from Hamilton's original story.

Oddly, Donald Hamilton never published "Ambush at Blanco Canyon," as a novel, although he did write the paperback novelization of "The Big Country," that was published by Dell in 1958, in August of the same year, Dell also published a comic book version of the story, written by Paul S. Newman, and illustrated by Bob Correa.

Director William Weiler later said, "The big country was about a man's refusal to act according to accepted standards of behavior."

Customs of the old West were sort of debunked but what was really being debunked in the film were the well-known tropes and familiar story elements of westerns, as well as traditional ideas about what a hero in a movie Western should look like and how he should behave.

Gregory Peck portrays James McKay as a self-possessed man who acts thoughtfully and deliberately.

He's a man who's seen the world and knows how to conduct himself in it.

He's willing to assume other people's goodwill unless he has clear evidence of the contrary.

Yet he is well aware when he's being mocked or provoked.

A reviewer for the monthly film Bulletin complained of the film's release.

"The pivotal character of McKay played on a monotonously self-righteous note by Gregory Peck never comes alive", but this complaint overlooks McKay's essential personal integrity.

From first to last he remains the same, thoughtful, deliberate man.

The plot of "The Big Country" seems to share McKay's broad-minded attitude towards people and conflicts as well as his insight into human behavior.

McKay's infatuation with Patricia Carroll cools when he sees how completely she's entangled in her father's prejudice, greed, and violence.

He's drawn instead to the unpretentious and fair-minded Julie Maragon, the Hannassey's, the family both the major and Patricia deride as white trash are less refined or less pretentious than the Terrills but the patriarch Rufus at least has a stronger sense of justice and fair play than Major Terrell.

If Rufus is aggrieved, by the way the Terrill's have treated his family it's made clear he has good reason to be.

Normally in a Western.

The audience would expect a man like McKay to finely give in to provocation at the end of the story and commit some violent act of vengeance.

But the final shootout between McKay and the brutish Buck Hannassey in "The Big Country" is a formal dual complete with twin antique flintlock pistols but Buckshot only grazes McKay's forehead Buck collapses in panic in the face of imminent death.

But McKay delopes, spoiling his shot.

Buck is instead shot by his father, Rufus outraged by Buck's cowardice and treachery.

The traditions of cinematic westerns may demand that a villain like Buck must meet a violent fate but in "The Big Country", the circumstances of his death allow Rufus to show his commitment to honor and a rough sort of justice.

While James McKay retains his principles and his humanity the way "The Big Country" both fulfilled and subverted audience expectations for an epic Western didn't sit well with many critics.

Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times.

"For all this film's, mighty pretensions, it does not get far beneath the skin of its conventional western situation and its stock Western characters.

It skims across standard complication and ends on a platitude.

Peace is a pious precept, but fighting is more exciting.

That's what it proves."

Despite mixed reviews, "The Big Country" was a hit with the public and with three and a half million dollars in domestic receipts it was also the fourth highest grossing movie of 1958.

The critical consensus has shifted the years since and many critics would now agree with the assessment of Richard L. Coe.

In a review on the Washington Post at the film's release he called "The Big Country", "Super stuff, Franz Planer's Photography is downright awe inspiring.

The characters are solid.

The storyline firm, the playing first rate, the music more than dashing in this nearly three hour tale which should delight everybody".

Even those who panned "The Big Country" when it came out.

Heaped praise on Burl Ives for his portrayal of Rufus Hannassey, Ives was born in Hunt City, Illinois on June 14th, 1909, and started his career as a folk singer while an itinerant laborer during the early '30s.

After serving in the Army during the Second World War Ives began a movie career.

He appeared in "East of Eden" in 1955 and in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" "Desire Under the Elms", and "Our Man in Havana", all in 1958.

The same year he played Rufus Hannassey in "The Big Country" That role earned him his only Oscar nomination and an Academy Award for best supporting actor.

But today, Burl Ives is probably best known as the voice of Sam the Snowman in the 1964 Rankin Bass Stop Action animated Christmas television special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".

Please join us again next time for another Saturday night at the Movies.

I'm Glenn Holland.

Goodnight.