Another of the movies that would have been on my "Blind Spot" list if I were taking part in that blogathon is Giant. It was on TCM during Summer Under the Stars as part of a day of Elizabeth Taylor movies, and I recorded it then. It will be on again tomorrow at 4:30 PM, so I recently sat down to watch it and do a post on it here.
Rock Hudson plays Joradn "Bick" Benedict Jr., who inherited a giant ranch from his father in Texas. However, at the start of the movie he's on a train to Maryland because he's looking to buy some horses from one of those southern gentlemen of a type, Dr. Lynnton (Paul Fix). Dr. Lynnton has two daughters, but for the purposes of our story the important one is Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor). She's being pursued by a young Britsh diplomat (Rod Taylor in a small role), but when she sees Bick, she immediately falls in love with him. She's also quite open about speaking her mind. The feeling between the two winds up being mutual, so Leslie marries Bick and goes back to Texas with him on the train.
There's shades of The Sea of Grass here, as Leslie has never been on a ranch, and doesn't yet know how to run it even if she is now technically the mistress of the ranch. Heretofore, running the ranch house and working well with Bick has been his elder sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge). Unsurprisingly, it's going to be a rough adjustment for both of the women, although thankfully for Leslie Luz dies off about a third of the way through the movie.
Working for Bick on the ranch is Jett Rink (James Dean), the sort of person polite society sees as uncouth and who bristles at being looked down upon. When Luz dies, she's bequeathed a small plot of land to Jett. Bick doesn't want Jett anywhere near the ranch, and offers to buy Jett out, but this is only going to make Jett angrier and determined to become a success as he prospects for oil on that small plot of land. This really ticks off Bick as the land is supposed to be for cattle, not oil. Eventually, of course, Jett does find that oil, and vows to show everybody just how big a guy he really is.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Bick and Leslie have obviously been busy having sex because Leslie first has twins who grow up to be Luz II (Carroll Baker) and Jordan "Jordy" Benedict III (Dennis Hopper), followed by a third child. Bick loves Jordy and doesn't really care for Luz, but that turns out to be better for Luz: Bick is raising Jordy to inherit the ranch, and Jordy would much rather become a doctor than a rancher. In fact, it's the third child, Judy, who would rather get into farming, although when she marries young ranch hand Bob, they would rather work their own land. This being a sprawling epic, World War II intervenes about here.
After the war is when Jett really becomes fabulously wealthy and, Charles Foster Kane-style, wants to use it. Young Luz, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Jett, because women apparently think James Dean is gorgeous, even when he has a horrible pencil moustache. Bick and Leslie don't know about this relationship, and are horrified when they learn about it.
For me, the big problem with Giant is that it veers too wildly from one plot line to the next, being the sort of story that probably would have worked better as a TV miniseries rather than a movie that, at 200 minutes without any sort of roadshow presentation like an overture or intermission, is way too long. I didn't even mention the racial tolerance part of the plot that's especially tacked on at the end: Leslie has been trying to help the poor Mexicans living in a shantytown on the ranch throughout the movie, while Jordy marries a young Mexican woman.
Even with the flaws, Giant is a memorable movie, thanks to excellent production design and good performances from all of the members of the elder generation. Among those I haven't mentioned in smaller roles in that generation are Jane Withers and Chill Wills; Sal Mineo plays a Mexican of about Jordy's age who gets killed in action in World War II. And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who will like the movie more than I did. So definitely give it a watch.
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