Trapper am Missouri

One of my favorite Kirk Douglas films is The Big Sky where he plays mountain man/trapper Jim Deakins. It's a great part for Douglas with his incredible charm and quick burn when someone does him wrong.

The Big Sky was RKO Pictures big production for 1952. I'd like to say that Howard Hughes spared no expense in making this film, shooting a good deal of it in the Grand Tetons, the actual location for the adventures of many fur trappers. But for the life of me I don't understand why Hughes and RKO after doing that, didn't spring for color.

Possibly because director Howard Hawks wanted black and white. His last epic film Red River had done well in black and white. Still I really think something was missed. RKO did use color on films with a lot less budget.

There's a lot of similarity between The Big Sky and Red River. Both films involve a group of men on an epic journey into the unknown for business reasons. In Red River, John Wayne has to get that huge herd to market and has to use a trail few have used. In The Big Sky a group of independent trappers basically want to land a nice fur contract with the Blackfeet Indians where few whites have gone up the Missouri River. Going against them is a fur trading consortium kind of like the one John Jacob Astor put together.

The trappers are mostly French Canadian Metis headed by Steven Geray, but also along is Arthur Hunnicutt who speaks the Indian language. Their ace in the hole is Elizabeth Threatt, a Blackfoot princess the trappers have rescued and are bringing back to her people in the hopes that her old man will be grateful. Hunnicutt is also the narrator of the film.

Douglas and Dewey Martin join up with the group in St. Louis and the trappers have the usual adventures as they take the flatboat up into the Missouri River country. The scenes showing journey upriver are nicely photographed.

Two others in the cast merit attention. Hank Worden does a nice job as a lost Blackfoot Indian who the trappers pick up. He may not be playing with a full deck, but he does come in handy. Jim Davis is one lean and mean villain as the company troubleshooter who wants to keep the independents out.

Arthur Hunnicutt got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role, The Big Sky proved to be his career film. Unfortunately he lost to Anthony Quinn for Viva Zapata. Still Hunnicutt's folksy charm was always something to look forward to in any film he was ever in.

The Big Sky is one of the best films ever done about the mountain man era of the American frontier. If they'd only spent for color.

The Big Sky is a classic screen gem, filmed in black & white in the style of Ansel Adams. A great print with delicious contrast that is an eye-feast for photography buffs. The script is rapid paced; be sure to train your ear to catch the snappy, fluent dialogue. Tender care is given to every character development, and many scenes that are so subtle are intended to breath real-life into the story. This is one of my all-time faves.

This film is a true joy, and one of Hawks's greatest works, though it's often underrated. It has all the great Hawksian themes: adventure, feisty women and cool men who, no matter how cool they are, need the feisty women. It's also a great classic Western, with beautiful outdoor photography and a terribly poetic evocation of going down the Missourri (it's vaguely based on Lewis and Clark). It's leisurely and enthralling in the way only Ford and Hawks could do. While Arthur Hunnicut in no Walter Brennan, and Dewey Martin is cute rather than great, Kirk is superb as ever. Don't miss.

The Big Sky is generally considered inferior and less important compared to Red River, the Western Howard Hawks directed in 1948 or four years before this one and which already has a status of a classic and Hawk's masterpiece. Howard Hawks himself wasn't pleased very much with the final result because he wanted John Wayne to play Kirk Douglas's role and mainly because the studio insisted on cutting out 20 minutes of the film to facilitate its distribution. In a conversation with Peter Bogdanovich Hawks later recalled that he had a difficulty recognizing his own film after seeing it in that `butchered' version.

But in my opinion The Big Sky stands on the level of Howard Hawk's best work remarkable for its visual beauty (though filming it in colour would definitely improve it), fine performances (Kirk Douglas is magnificent here and it's hard to imagine other actor playing this role), wonderful music from Dimitri Tiomkin and interesting story of, basically, friendship, that even might be called love, between the two main characters of Jim Deakins (Kirk Douglas) and Dewey Martin (Boone Caudill) but friendship on a background of a perilous and adventurous journey up the Missouri river to the Indian territory where no white man ever set his foot before, with a group of peculiar French adventurers and an Indian princess Teal Eye (Elizabeth Threatt) who steals their hearts and threatens their friendship.

A must see classic. 9/10

I liked this movie very much. Kirk ,Dewey and Hunnicutt, gave stellar performances.I could watch this over and over. I recommend it for all, who are interested in good films and great performances.