Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Jackson Booth-Millard From director Howard Hawks (Scarface, Bringing Up Baby, To Have and Have Not, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), this is a film I found in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I hoped it would live up to that designation. Basically set in 1832, frontiersman and Indian trader Jim Deakins (Kirk Douglas) and Boone Caudill (Dewey Martin) are initially hostile to each other, but soon become friends and head for the Missouri River to find Boone's uncle Zeb Calloway (Oscar nominated Arthur Hunnicutt). They find him in jail and are put in a cell with him, for brawling with fur traders of the Missouri River Company, 'Frenchy' Jourdonnais (Steven Geray) comes to bail him, and is talked into letting the other two out as well, and Jim and Boone join Zeb and Frenchy to travel 2000 miles on an expedition up the river to trade with the Blackfoot Indians, in competition with the Missouri Company. The posse have with them pretty Blackfoot woman Teal Eye (Elizabeth Threatt) who Zeb found several years ago after she escaped an enemy tribe, he plans to use her as a hostage, being the daughter of a chief. On the journey they encounter Poordevil (Hank Worden), another Blackfoot that Zeb knows, Teal Eye falls into the river and is rescued from rapids by Boone, but she is captured by Streak (Jim Davis) from a party of The Missouri Company, they try to set fire to the group's boat, but Frenchy wakes in time to stop severe damage. The expedition reaches Blackfeet and trading begins, Teal Eye tells a very disappointed Jim she loves him, like a brother, Boone is surprised to find later that she is married, but she makes him buy her so that her father is allowed to leave anytime he wishes, in the end when winter is approaching the men start the long journey back, but Boone decides to stay with Teal Eye. Also starring Buddy Baer as Romaine and Henri Letondal as La Badie. I agree with the critics that Dougles is good but perhaps a little too suave and intense, and I can see Hunnicutt was nominated an Oscar, the black and white film definitely has great landscape scenes and is pretty well acted, my only problem with it was that it was a bit slow for the majority, only the action sequences saved it being from being boring, I'm not sure it's the sort of film I'd see again, but it's not a bad western adventure. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Cinematography. Worth watching!

l_rawjalaurence This is a fascinating piece. Directed by Howard Hawks in the year after THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, THE BIG SKY postulates a highly liberal message about the possibilities of communication between Euro-Americans and Native Indians. Jim Deakins (Kirk Douglas) and sidekick Boone Caudill (Dewey Martin) join a group of fur-traders embarking on a perilous journey into America's wild interior. Despite their obvious resourcefulness, they find that they cannot do without the help of Native Indian girl Teal Eye (Elizabeth Threatt) and her ally Poordevil (Hank Woorden). The film outlines their various adventures, culminating in a climax that shows the two groups coming together - perhaps permanently. There are several familiar sequences showing the Euro-Americans repelling danger, as well as coping with potential threats within their own community (not everyone is as trustworthy as Douglas), but eventually the community emerges from the experience with a new sense of strength as well as a deeper sense of the lives of Others. There are certain scenes where the Native Indians are represented as savages - notably one sequence involving drums with strong visual links to Val Lewton's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943) - but Hawks tries his best to adopt an even-handed approach. Although the Native Indians are played by white actors, they are favorably portrayed: if people try to understand one another better, then perhaps they might get along.

robertguttman Howard Hawks directed successful movies in just about every genre; including screwball comedy, film noir and even science fiction. However, he seems to have had a particular affinity for westerns, and "The Big Sky" was one of his best. "The Big Sky", which Hawks made made in 1952, was a western produced on a scale every bit as grand as his earlier effort, "Red River". However, despite the fact that "The Big Sky" is also a western, it is a very different movie. "The Big Sky" is set in a much earlier era, 1831. One result of that is that the usual lever-action Winchester rifles and "six-shooters" found in most westerns are absent, the characters being armed with the muzzle-loading rifles of that earlier era. In addition surprisingly few horses and no cattle, are in evidence for a western, since the story deals with an earlier era, when fur-trading was the important business and cattle-raising hadn't even begun yet. There is also a great deal of water in evidence for a western, since most of the action takes place on board a boat making it's way up the Missouri River. Another unusual feature is that, for a western, the story features an unusually large proportion of French-speaking characters. It is often forgotten today that the city of St. Louis, Missouri was actually founded by the French, and only became part of the United States in 1803. Consequently, there were undoubtedly many French-speaking people to be found still living around there three decades later, just as there were farther south in New Orleans."The Big Sky" is, of course, the nickname for the present-day State of Montana, and the story revolves around a voyage up the Missouri River to trade with the Indians living as far up river as that region, if not beyond. Interestingly, the Indians are depicted as being not necessarily averse to such contact. In fact, the biggest conflict is with the large "Trading Company", with which the protagonists are in commercial competition.Filmed in black-and-white amid some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States, "The Big Sky" is a spectacular and somewhat unusual western that is well worth a look.

henrylbs This is a movie that I try to watch whenever it is on but I am sad because there is so much that I don't like about it. First the positives... I love the haunting theme music that just seems so appropriate for this movie. I also like the story about a largely unknown time in western America and and I like the way it is presented as a story being told by the Arthur Hunnicutt character, the old mountain man Zeb Calloway. The narration is just perfect with Hunnicutt's folksy voice and because it mostly fills in the holes and keeps it all moving. And then there are the interesting characters of which I especially like the seemingly hapless Indian Poordevel played by Hank Worden. And now the things that bother me about the movie... I hate the fact that it is in black and white and moreover it seems dark and lifeless to me. All the wonder that could have been made of the magnificent scenery is lost. What a waste. Second, I generally dislike Kirk Douglas who always seems so over the top, so overbearing and obnoxious and unlikeable that I have difficulty watching any movie that he is in. (I've read that he was rather unlikeable and this aspect of his personality seems to show through in his roles.) In this one he is a frontiersman, Jim Deakins,who mainly plays against another frontiersman, Boone Caudill, played by the unknown actor Dewey Martin. Martin's personality is nonexistent with the result that the overpowering Douglas dominates every scene so the movie is mostly about the Douglas character and a lot of the other character development is not done sufficiently. For example we wonder why Poordevil is the way he is, a drunken Indian caricature yet reliable when he is needed. We also miss the fact until the very end that something is going on between the Indian woman Teal Eye whose character is totally undeveloped and the Martin character Boone Caudill. We really never get to know either of them so for me at least the ending came as a surprise. In fact, I'm not sure Teal Eye, who is played by Elizabeth Threatt, has a single line in this movie and Boone has little to say except in the scenes dominated by Douglas. Arthur Hunnicutt shines through all this but except as the story teller, his is a minor role. The clash with the trading company is predictable and the story ends well as we suspect it will since the narrator lived to tell about it. All and all, a very watchable movie that makes me crazy when I think about how good it could have been .