Sangre en el río

This film is EXCELLENT and is filled with many vivid scenes of the Jackson Hole Valley country. Being shot along the Snake River and within easy sight of the Teton Mountain range it gives an amazingly accurate account of what early Keel Boat travel might have been like along the Missouri River and other Western tributaries. Kirk Douglas (Jim Deakins) is superb as he portrays one of three game hunters, along with Dewey Martin (Boone), and the comic backwoods relief of Arthur Hunicutt (Uncle Zeb). Mr. Hunicutt steals the show with his Southern drawl and folksy way cultivating a feeling for the viewer as being one of the "crew". The use of actual French actors & accents adds to the believable setting of the early 1800s environ and customs of the trappers and mountain men who blazed the trails into the West and survived through trade and co-operation with the Indian tribes who populated it. From using trees along the bank to catapult game down to the Keel boat, to the unforgettable scene where "medical" aid is rendered to Kirk.

Well worth your time and any children should be shown it as well because they'll remember it throughout their lives. I certainly have!

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

The Big Sky is directed by Howard Hawks and adapted by Dudley Nichols from the novel of the same name written by A.B. Guthrie Jr. It stars Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt & Arthur Hunnicutt. Dimitri Tiomkin scores the music and Russell Harlan photographs on location at Grand Teton National Park & Jackson Hole in Wyoming.

1832 and Jim Deakins (Douglas) & Boone Caudill (Martin) meet by chance out in the wilderness. Quickly bonding they travel to St Louis together to seek out Boone's Uncle Zeb (Hunnicutt). After finding him via a bar room brawl, the two men agree to join Zeb in a venture up the Missouri river to trade fur with the unpredictable Blackfoot Indians; their insurance against attack by the Blackfoot coming courtesy of Teal Eye (Threatt), a beautiful Blackfoot princess kidnapped years previously and now being returned home. Along the way the party have to battle nature, the Indian factions and also the Missouri Company out to topple their enterprise for fear of losing their monopoly on trade. Perhaps worse still is that the new found friendship between Boone & Jim will be tested by their mutual attraction to Teal Eye?

Given the credentials that come with The Big Sky, it's a little surprising that it's not more well known. Hawks, Douglas and Tiomkin speak for themselves, while Guthrie wrote the script for Shane and Nichols wrote the screenplay for John Ford's 1939 pulse raiser, Stagecoach. Add in that Hunnicutt and Harlan were Academy Award nominated for Best Support Actor and Cinematography respectively, well you have a fine bunch of professionals involved with this movie. So why so ignored or forgotten? The starting point should be with Hawks himself, who openly had issues with the finished product. Originally the film was a huge 140 minutes long and was doing decent business at the box office. But the studio execs had it cut down to 122 minutes so as to fit one more screening in during the day. The film promptly flopped and was left for dead by director and studio. Hawks was also never fully behind Douglas in the role of Deakins, he had wanted Gary Cooper or John Wayne. It seems in the end that Hawks just walked away after release and lost faith in promoting it. Western fans were grateful that the experience didn't make him turn his back on the genre, tho, for he delivered Rio Bravo 7 years later.

Having not seen the full uncut version of the film, I personally have to say that the 122 minute version viewed was pretty uneven and lacking a certain narrative spark to make it fully work. It's even episodic for the most part. What isn't in doubt is that visually it's one of Hawks' most rewarding pictures, with Harlan's photography sumptuous and period perfecto. Douglas is spirited and plays the black humour within quite nicely, while Martin is good foil for Douglas' beaming machismo, even if he's just a little too animated at times. Threatt doesn't have to do anything other than smile and look pretty, while Hank Worden shows up to neatly play a buffoon Indian called Poordevil! Undoubtedly the star of the show is Hunnicutt (who also narrates), tucking into a boozy, grizzled, teller of tall tales character, Hunnicutt lifts the film on the frequent occasions it threatens to sag beyond repair.

With the visuals and enjoyable Hawksian take on "man love" the film is worth the time of any Western fan. While the efforts to resist racism are honourable and neatly played. But in the end Hawks' frustration is justified, for it feels like a patched together adventure piece. And certainly not one that makes you think it's directed by the man who made Red River. I wouldn't hesitate to watch the full 140 minute cut of the film, but until then it will be some time before I can see myself watching this version again. 6/10

Footnote: Some Region 2 DVD's exist of the full cut, where the cut scenes have been spliced back in from a 16mm print. I'm led to believe that the quality is far from great. For British readers, the 122 minute cut shows up once in a blue moon on TV, where the BBC have the rights so at least it is advertisement free. As yet there is still no Region 1 release for the film.

"The Big Sky" is one of the most unique and entertaining adventure films ever made. Set in the American frontier of the early 1800s, it's the story of an ambitious party who pole their keel boat up the Missouri River into new territories, far beyond where other white men have ventured, to trade for furs with the Blackfeet Indians.

"The Big Sky" was filmed on location, and this alone makes the film worth watching, for the splenor of the Snake River and Grand Tetons, where the film was actually shot, is breathtaking.

But "The Big Sky" has other virtues which raise it far above the average "scenic". First, is the multi-layered plot. Besides the story of an enterprise, "The Big Sky" is about how men, in a time long past, interacted, when their differences were subordinated to a higher purpose. Second, is director Howard Hawks, whose trademark "naturalistic dialogue" technique is put to wonderful use here. Hawks works on complex relationships - male and female, "Frenchie" and Anglo backwoodsmen, Native Americans and whites - like a conductor a symphony. Third, and perhaps most touching, is the tale of male bonding not only among the group of men, but one-on-one between Jim Deakins, played by Kirk Douglas, and Boone, his young sidekick, played by Hawks protegé Dewey Martin. There's a nice, touching story toward the end.

This is a shamefully underrated film. Superb cinematography (Oscar nominated), rich plot, flawless casting (Arthur Hunnicutt nominated for Best Supporting Oscar), masterful direction, make "The Big Sky" a true classic.