The Big Country

About The Big Country

The Big Country is a 1958 American Western film directed by William Wyler. It stars Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford, and Chuck Connors. Based on a novel by Donald Hamilton.

Ives won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for the musical score by Jerome Moross.

Wealthy, newly retired sea captain and ship-owner James McKay (Gregory Peck) travels to the American west to rejoin his fiancée Patricia (Carroll Baker), whom he had met out East, at the ranch of her father, Major Terrill (Charles Bickford). Terrill is a powerful rancher who is feuding with the equally tough patriarch of a poorer, less refined clan, Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). Patricia's best friend, schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), is caught between the two. She owns the "Big Muddy", a small ranch with a vital source of water. Hannassey desperately needs it for his cattle, while Terrill wants to gain control of it to bring his rival down.