Smorgasbord Music Column – My favourite Movie Music – #Western – The Big Country

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William Price King is on as short  break.. He will be back on November 12th. In the meantime, I will be sharing my favourite movie music…

My father was a huge Western fan and although his favourite cowboy was John Wayne, my mother’s pin up was Gregory Peck… I was dragged  brought up well versed in the movies of both and The Big Country is in my opinion one of the finest westerns made.

The Big Country is a 1958 American Technicolor epic Western film directed by William Wyler and starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston and Burl Ives filmed in Technirama. The supporting cast features Charles Bickford and Chuck Connors. The picture was based on the serialized magazine novel Ambush at Blanco Canyon by Donald Hamilton. and was co-produced by Wyler and Peck. The opening title sequence was created by Saul Bass. The film is one of the very few pictures in which Heston plays a major supporting role instead of the lead.

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

Thanks to loafersguy

If you have never seen The Big Country here is the link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Country-Gregory-Peck/dp/B000056H2H

Thanks for tuning in today and hope you have enjoyed the music thanks Sally.

 

28 thoughts on “Smorgasbord Music Column – My favourite Movie Music – #Western – The Big Country”

  1. The Big Country is a favourite of mine too. This is a 6 degrees of separation moment! I worked in music and one of my roles was providing music for movie/TV soundtracks, not this one, however. But, John Wayne was in films with my husband’s great aunt, Elizabeth Risdon and also with my sister-in-law’s father, Bill Halliday (mostly cowboys films with Bill) and our son got to know Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Charlton Heston really well in their later years when he worked with them – Elizabeth Risdon also worked with them. She was in over 100 movies in her day. Just reminded me. Music in movies is so important but these days a little too over-powering.

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  7. Thank you for sharing this movie clip — heroic music and also an immediate reminder about how HORSE-dependent our culture used to be… Odd to think that we still rate engines by how much “horsepower” they can generate!

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  8. I don’t think I have actually seen the film but that music is so iconic! Just beaten by The Magnificent Seven according to Cyberspouse – who also says Big Country should be seen on the big screen!

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  9. I was raised on westerns, my dad being a cowboy. I was surprised to learn how popular westerns were in the UK. I bet your dad was delighted to visit you in Texas when you lived there.

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