The Big Land [Stampeded] ** (1957, Alan Ladd, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien) – Classic Movie Review 12,246

‘The Big Land (1957) was the big gamble… They staked their gold, their women, and their lives!’

Director Gordon Douglas’s 1957 Western film The Big Land [Stampeded] stars Alan Ladd, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O’Brien.

Alan Ladd plays cowboy drifter Chad Morgan, who persuades Texas cattlemen and farmers to join forces with Tom Draper (Don Castle)’s railway company and outwit ruthless crooked cattle baron Brog (Anthony Caruso) and build a model new town.

The Big Land is a moderate Western with some dull acting – apart from Caruso who plays like he’s in a silent movie – but Edmond O’Brien is good value as the desperate alcoholic town drunk architect Joe Jagger, whom Ladd rescues from a lynch mob, but then dries out and designs the town. When Caruso tries to spoil things with the new town, Ladd goes out with blazing guns.

The big budget, strong Jaguar Productions production for Warner Bros and John F Seitz’s photography in Warnercolor give a grandeur that balances the clichéd characters and formula plot. And Gordon Douglas’s direction is sturdy enough. Virginia Mayo plays saloon gal Helen Jagger, and sings (dubbed) a 1950s blues song in the 1860s setting.

David Dortort and Martin Rackin’s screenplay is adapted from Frank Gruber’s novel Buffalo Grass.

Also in the cast are Julie Bishop, John Qualen, David Ladd, Don Castle, Jack Wrather Jr, George J Lewis, James Anderson, Don Kelly, and Charles Watts.

Alan Ladd’s Jaguar Productions bought the film rights to the 1955 novel Buffalo Grass before publication for a reported $100,000.

It was shot near Sonora, California, near Yosemite National Park, over four weeks in June 1956, followed by shooting on the Warner Bros backlot, where four different sets for the township were created.

It was the final film of Julie Bishop.

Joe Jagger: ‘I’ve been eating so much rabbit, when I sleep at night, I keep dreaming about carrots.’

‘I Leaned on a Man’ is written by Leonard Rosenman and Wayne Shanklin, and sung by Bonnie Lou Williams (uncredited), dubbing for Virginia Mayo.

Alan Ladd’s Jaguar Productions: Drum Beat (1954), Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), A Cry in the Night (1956), The Big Land (1957), The Deep Six (1958), The Man in the Net (1959), Island of Lost Women (1959), Guns of the Timberland (1960), and All the Young Men (1960).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,246

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