Behind-the-Scenes THE BIG COUNTRY Directed by William Wyler with Catherine & David Wyler! AWOW 

The scene where Burl Ives enters the ball is a show stopper.

One of my all-time favorite Westerns. And what a great role for Burl Ives.

That score from The Big Country is the best. As is the fight scene between Heston and Peck.

One of those movies you never forget! And the music...unforgettable.

A sea captain from that era was truely a man's man...made of stern stuff. Everyone else in the movie so underestimated G. Peck's character just because he kept his strengths in check. Awesome movie, and awesome vid. Thank you!!!

I saw Big Country when I was 12 years old it may sound corny but I think the Gregory Peck character influenced my life somehow. A great western.

Another fascinating program. Glad to see Burl Ives get some attention. He was so underrated as an actor.

This channel is such a treasure! I'm always learning new things about the westerns. I will never thank you enough for keeping westerns alive Mr. Word.

one of the best movies, best westerns .... completely worth watching if you have not seen it

One of the best movies ever made.

My all time favorite Western. Loved everything Burl Ives ever did. Wonderful folk singer BTW. Was head over heels in love with Jean Simmons thanks to this film and Spartacus.

Ben Hur is possibly the greatest movie of them all. For me, it is.

Mr, Word, you must be reading my mind! I just finished watching "The Big Country" for the umpteenth time.

Gosh Rob this came out of the blue for me. Unexpected and wonderful interviews with William Wylers children. So interesting and I couldn't stop listening. Wow. Way to go Rob. You made my day. Thank you so much.

A classic, score was superb, one of my favourite movies. Burl Ives was never better.

Most of the towns buildings used in The Big Country were moved to Pollardville Ghost Town, a roadside attraction along Hwy-99 near Stockton, Calif. I worked weekends at the ghost town as a gunslinger/stuntman robbing the train, stagecoach, and performing gunfights every hour, on the hour. Can't even count how many times I was shot off the balcony of the hotel & fell onto a wagon, then bounced onto the street below. Great job for a teenager.

William Wyler is in the pantheon of great directors.

Always learning something new about these epic Westerns. I never knew that Gregory Peck coproduced "The Big Country" with Wyler. Another great film that I will now be sure to view again soon. Thank you, Rob, for another Sunday morning lift!

Fantastic movie. And Burl Ives 👍🏼🇺🇸

The Big Country was a terrific western .... and Wyler was an incredible director .... the music just fantastic ...

Fascinating insight into these classic films and the characters that make it all happen. Huge thanks for your labors.

Thanks Rob I love this movie One of the best westerns ever. Thanks for the great stories too, looking forward to next week's episode!

Thanks a bunch for this show..!! "Big Country" one of my favorite westerns. Tha buck board scene I liked because Gregory Peck was understanding and forgiving.

Fantastic interview. William Wyler’s children were fascinating to listen to. I so appreciate all the work you put into these videos.

Thank you for mentioning Jerome Moross' exceptional soundtrack for The Big Country. One of the most memorable and enjoyable film scores ever recorded. Very nice, Rob. Many thanks.

Good lord, what a great cast in that movie! The movie itself is one of my all-time favorite western movies. The fight scene with Heston and Peck is the best fight scene ever. I loved the line "you sure take a long time to say goodbye" ...

Thanks for sharing. Awesome Movie The ride into Blanco Canyon one of the best Western scenes ever filmed. The manipulation of honor and trust, realistic, and the film score makes it outstanding.

I love westerns. Love hearing the stories behind the filming. I could listen to the character actors all day long. What wonderful tales they have to share with us fans! Thanks for bringing the western back to us!

The big country a great movie western from the times before the dark time they were just so great and I love All these 1960 westerns John Wayne Jimmi Stewart Robert mitchum Charlton heston and All these great actors i have sound track on cd great thanks Ward for this video

What a wonderful look at William Wilder. There is so much that goes on behind the camera and I love learning about it through your videos. Thank you, Rob; keep them coming.

One of the all-time great westerns and that theme still sends a tingle down my spine

One of my all time favourites. Thanks for the interview.

Burl Ives' character was strong and virtues, even though his son was a bully and a coward. How unlike the father and son were. Have to admit I rooted for Burl Ives in his duel with Bickford.

you do a great series,,,i am in my early 60s and have been a "old movie"fan since i was a kid,,i have hundreds of books on theses great films ..and actors,,young kids of today need to re discover these films like i did with the silents and such,,,anyway keep up the cool job you do with this!

Another great video Rob Word, the son/daughter, of William Wyler, what a great choice. The Big Country, always one of my favorites. The musical score top ten of all time. The things you unveil of celebrities, producers, directors, and others is very unique, and uncanny. To find out Mr Wyler had hearing problems, was justifying in that my own father, who loved music. He also had hearing problems due to illness as a teenager. In closing Thank You again WOW, and Rob Word. Wyo, Robert,🇨🇦🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇸🔫🐎🐎🔫👍👍

The instrumental introduction to The Big Country is the greatest opening of any movie I have seen . I think I have seen at least 15,000 movies !

GREAT WESTERN!! Enjoyed it immensely Rob!! Very interesting as always!! Enjoy your Sunday!!

ROB! you completely out-did yourself on this one! This interview with these two fabulous guest is fascinating and riveting at the same time! Thank GOd these two are still alive to talk about their father's incredible legacy!

Great Movie and Gregory Peck as always was fantastic! I really enjoy your videos keep up the great work and Thank You!

I love Big Country !

Fun insight on a unusually great and different western. So many twist and turns full of characters rich in power. Even the little things are fun.

Cathy Wyler gets the story about Peck and Wyler wrong. They had already reconciled before the AFI dinner. Peck actually hosted the AFI dinner.

Great interview rob. Burl Ives was brilliant in it.

Bravo! 'The Big Country' is one of my top 5 all-time best westerns! And the musical score! Powerful and uplifting!

My father loved this movie and thought it was one of the greatest westerns.

MY FIVE: 1.The Big Country 2, Butch Cassidy ... 3. Unforgiven 4. Warlock 5. High Noon. The excellent performances in The Big Country by Burl Ives and Chuck Connors are most memorable for me.

Great Movie, love watching it!

Great western. Great score. Great actors. One of my favorites.

This is such a wonderful conversation. Thank you!

Great interview to find out about this great director.

One of the better secuences ever filmed is the one commented in min 10:20 by Wyler sons, when Heston (Leech) rides towards his "Major" to support him in his endevour against the Hennessy´s. Poweful image with a powerful soundrack. This is the perfect image of "loyalty". Fantastic scene!

One of the best westerns ever made

I started watching these fascinating videos on my PC, so it was easy to upvote and make comments, but cast them to my big screen HD TV to enjoy them even more.

It's said that if an actor is good, it's the actor. If everyone is good, it's the director.

GREAT JOB ROB, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

Mr. Word, Your historical knowledge of films in general, and Westerns in particular, is astounding. It adds richness to every interview. In response to your question to me today on another interview regarding the westerns I’ve rediscovered due to your show is: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Red River, and Shane. I intend to view every Western you deem worthy and purchase WESTERN PORTRAITS to enjoy the character actors which enriched every western film. You are a superior, thoughtful, and charming interviewer. Your show is such a pleasure. Thank you! Suzanne

That was a great theme song. We played it in marching band in high school…

Watched this again never gets old.

William Wyler was one of the greatest directors. "The Big Country" was the first movie that I saw in an inside movie theater. It has always been a favorite of mine, possibly because of that. I tried to pattern my life after the character that Gregory Peck played in the movie. There were so many great actors in the roles of the movie. So many of my favorite movies were directed by William Wyler. There are too many to mention, buy I would like to mention "Friendly Persuasion."

What a great film...

Its nice to hear what goes on , on the sets when film. Thanks for doing this Rob

The Big Country, is probably one of my favorite westerns. The actors are first rate as was the story about two feuding men and the effect that had on others around them. Chuck Conners is as far from his Rifleman character as you can get. I loved the one scene where the Major Terral character was raiding the Hennesy ranch and a little boy kicked his horse in the rear out of disgust. Great interview with Wyler's children Rob.

i have this on blu ray...its so beautiful...great looking film!

I watched this western with my mother when I was a small child, she always loved chuck Heston as she called him! I’m 42 now and I’m a huge western fan but this one is definitely one of my favourites, it has everything, the brilliant actors spectacular western scenery and that legendary score! They aren’t capable of such movies now, the actors mumble their lines the sets are dark and dreary , they are trying too hard to be authentic and all that, who cares! I want to watch big bright colourful westerns where the men are men the women are women, I don’t want to see sex or over the top violence , no need for it, thank god for what was made in the 40s 50s 60s and into the 70s , I’m from Ireland but the America I love is captured by those actors of that era in those movies

Always super interesting. Great channel!

Uno de los mejores directores de la historia: un perfeccionista que (según David Niven) hacia repetir una escena hasta el cansancio, hasta quedar satisfecho

I love it thank you.

just watched this film on the Criterion Channel, it was the restored version (a flawless must see) IMHO: It is the perfect storm of all the film arts coming together to create A SPECTACULAR WESTERN CLASSIC!

Burl Ives stood equal with Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston in this movie. His part as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that year may have been just a powerful.

Great 4 star western/flick...watch this one ,.. a definate "drop the clicker" when I cable surf,...i watched this with some family members who aren't into oldies, I couldn't convince my relative that burly-n-mean (Burl Ives) was the jolly ol' snowman on that "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer" show...*lol*.

A Top 10 western. Chuck Connors' role as Buck was a 180-degree turn from The Rifleman. One of my favorite movies and Gregory Peck was so underrated as a western actor.

You need to get Bruce Dern sometime.

Thank you for this interview. "The Big Country" is one of my favorite films, criminally underrated today it really belongs on the proverbial Mount Rushmore of great westerns. That scene where Charles Bickford rides into Blanco Canyon and Heston reluctantly following is one of my favorite sequences ever in a movie...I can imagine David Lean watching that scene and exclaiming "Damn, I wish I shot that!" William Wyler was incredible. Also, 1958 was certainly Burl Ives' year...not only did he appear in "The Big Country" and "Wind on the Everglades", he also recreated his Big Daddy performance in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. Can't think of many actors that enjoyed a year like that. Finally, there's an excellent interview with Jean Simmons from the early 2000s with Stephen Bogart where she did talk (a little) about The Big Country and generally said she enjoyed working on it. I'll link the interview here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WE6u_c7vsYE.html

She's correct about the buckboard scene except for one detail. I saw a Gregory Peck interview on this and he said he got so mad at Wyler for not re-shooting the scene that he - Peck - walked off the set and there was still more shooting left to do that day! Also he was correct about the Blanco Canyon scene. Powerful! And the scenery is magnificent!

Thanks , wonderful

My favorite parts of the film are Ives' speech at the party and the duel. Casting Connors against type was excellent. The year before this movie, he'd been the father in Disney's " Old Yeller. " And in 1959, he became Lucas McCain in " The Rifleman. "

One of my favorites films

Just watched this movie again fabulous

Rob is a superb interviewer....and an encyclopedia of knowledge on films. Wonderful show.

I just love that movie I have wash the three times in the past recent months and not watch it again if it ever came back on TV

A similar incident happened when Peck shot Moby Dick. He asked the director, John Huston, to reshoot a monologue Peck thought that he could do better. Huston fobbed off the actor until Peck nagged him enough, and an angry Huston said, "OK, Greg, but let's not just re-shoot that, let's do the entire sequence." And they spent the next week re-shooting a week's worth of work, humbling Peck, and setting the film behind schedule. Peck and Huston also had a falling out, one which was never resolved. Peck accepted the role of Capt. Ahab only when Huston told him he was the only actor he had considered for the part. The 40 year old Peck thought he wasn't old enough or up to the challenge of taking on the part, but Huston convinced him otherwise. A year later, after the film tanked at the box office, Peck learned Huston wanted to play Ahab himself, but could not get financing without a bankable star and reluctantly accepted Peck. When Peck learned this, he refused to speak to Huston again. And they never did.

Thank you Rob.

No. 1 Western Ever, in my book!!

Burl to me is the beautiful sound of Christmas ⛄🎄

This was a very good western movie peck did a good job

wonderful as usual wonder if wyler had greg in mind for ben hur pre bust up. i know rock hudson nearly did it. had a real directors feel for actors could get the best out of anyone.most famously with double amputee harold russell who got two oscars for best years but big country apart from the leads who are excellent features i think the best acted support cast in movies. bickford patrician unmoving ives the same but with iron resolve. bedoya who turns the yardman into a work of art and 6ft 6 chuck connors who seemed to be indestructible in the rifleman giving the performance of his life as one of the two toughest men on the range is secretly a conniving coward kept secret until his death to all but the audience! his sly looks to camera tip us the wink that this imposing man who everyone is scared of is not all he seems. wonderful picture reduces the problems faced to their true perspective the big country dominates like the desert in lawrence of arabia.the clever thing is how it shrinks ives and bickford at the start powerful cattle rivals through the long shot fight with heston and peck to at the end two small old men fighting a private war that despite the grandeur they sought to dignify the war with is really shrank down to just them.the end shoot out mainly in longshot again heightens the patheticness of their duel and how ultimately they made no difference to the big country . wonderful breathtaking work my favourite scene is the ballroom when ives walks in with a shotgun like an old testament prophet and bickfords contemptuos smirk as he faces down his nemises.says more about the range wars in that exchange than a ton of history books.superbly shot written and acted and very authentic also.we really think we are there in the picture.wyler not so well remembered now was with ford considered the best of the golden age directors and in terms of making box office giants surpasses even de mille.great man.

*A great Western, but one thing no discussion ever mentions is the fact that none of "The Big Country" was actually shot in Texas, were it was set. Instead, all the scenes were filmed in California.*

luvvvv the big country

The Big Country to me was the perfect movie, could not fault it in any way. Had heard that Peck wasn't happy with it but he must have been a hard man to please.

I truly enjoy your programs, I'm a western lover. I also love the movie "The Big Country". I thought it was a great movie, but felt there were intriguing aspects that were not addressed. There seemed to be some underlying relationship between Leech and Patricia that was not explored .As I watch the dance sequence at the engagement party, there is a couple, in the background that stop dancing and glare at Steve as he requests to dance with Patricia, then the couple walks off the dance floor. And what was the situation between Henry and Rufus...why did they hate each other? I would have enjoyed seeing some affection being exchanged by James McKay and Julie at the end of the movie. I wish they would have replaced some riding of horses and fighting to address what I consider more intrigue delving into the different relationships.

8:20 Paul Newman said in an interview that he "didn't have the LEGS" to do sword and sandal movies.

Love this movie

Love the buckboard scene, Jim Burk a regular on John Wayne movies played a Hannassy brother. Burl Ives deserved an Oscar for his role.

I always thought that the duel between the two old men should've been those cap and ball pistols, he set them up for his son and peck's duel,why not recharge them,and offer choice to his rival??with peck and Heston, the second's . .

Peck was great

burl ives just about stole that film.

Excellent analysis of The Big Country, Mr. Word, which we just saw for the first time about a year ago. I didn't recall that Burl Ives gave a great performance in Wind Across the Everglades that year, which I later saw as a wee lad, but he also gave an Oscar-worthy performance that same year as Big Daddy, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. So, 1958 was the year of Burl Ives. However, you say, "Multi-Oscar winning director William Wyler (1902-1981) using a repetitive directing technique..." To what does that refer?

True Hollywood legend not fake one.

The question may not have been asked, but reportedly Wyler hated Jerome Moross' score, but Peck insisted it be left in.

I’m surprised they didn’t mention that this film was President Eisenhower’s favorite movie.