Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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.

The Big Sky is one of my favourite western novels - because it goes against all the "Western" rules. It's main character is vicious, angry and dangerous. In the first chapter, he tries to kill his own father (a fate the old creep richly deserves). If he's insulted,he pulls out a knife. When someone whips him, he comes back later planning a killing. People die throughout the book,they get scalped and VD and smallpox - kind of the way people did in the frontier.So what does Hollywood do? Make the lead the supporting character, the sidekick the lead (& make him Kirk Douglas - nice & non-threatening). Start the movie several chapters in, so you don't see Dada cop it. Oh, and the boatload of characters waving at the Indians at the end? Halfway through the book, those same Indians wiped them out. 'Nuff said. If you decide to make a movie of a book, why change it?

Yes, I know this is a frontier western but it yet is one that manages to feel more like an adventurous pirate movie at times. The characters travel by water and also their looks and behavior seem more suited for a pirates movie. I'm not saying all this as a complaint though, on the contrary really. I like the movie for having such an adventurous feeling and atmosphere to it. It makes this an unique sort of western, by Howard Hawks.In its setup and with its story, this foremost remains a quite simplistic movie. Basically it's a movie in which the main characters are traveling from point A to B and come across all sorts of dangers and meet new people on their way. This is an approach that often gets picked for a movie of this sort, made around the same time period but most of those movies don't really work for me, since they are often just not that interesting to follow and also way too slow in certain parts. This is even a problem I have with lots of other Howard Hawks movies but I can honestly say that this movie did actually work for me. Even though the movie definitely had plenty of slow moments in it, it never bored me because it was a very engaging one to watch.Like most of these movies do, it also builds- and relies heavily on the comradely amongst its main characters. This is a theme that quite often appeals to men, so you can also really truly call this a men movie, despite the fact that it also throws in a obligatory love-story.It's not like Kirk Douglas his performance makes this movie but his presence is still of course a welcome one. It's a movie from the very early days of his career, before he really was an household name, even though he had already earned himself an Oscar nominated and earned another one in the same year as this movie got done, for his role in "The Bad and the Beautiful", which is also a movie that I absolutely loved watching!It's not the type of western that's set in only the desert. Like I said before, for most part its set on a river and in the northern countryside, in which the Indians still ruled. It provides the movie with some beautiful scenery, that perhaps is not really done enough justice by the movie its black & white camera-work. But who knows, maybe the overall movie would had not worked out as well if it indeed got shot in full, bright color. So we just have to take this movie for what is and be glad for the way that it turned out to be.An adventurously entertaining-, as well as intriguing movie to watch.8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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. 6/10Footnote: 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.