Alfonso Bedoya is rightly remembered for his line in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges." Just as telling is the way Alfonso articulated the key concept of The Big Country when he says of Jim McKay: "A man like him is very rare." There is a sense of respect in Alfonso's delivery and a need to relate to others what he has seen in McKay. There is great irony in the fact that everyone else except for Julie as played by Jean Simmons fails to see McKay's qualities. And they assume superiority in all things related to life in the west.
This is a film about prejudice on a number of levels. The Mexican ranch hand, Ramon, is disregarded and even called an idiot by the ranch's owner, Henry Terrill, when he tells him and daughter, Pat, not to worry about McKay going off on his own to explore the ranch. "I don't think he'll get lost. He's a very smart man. And he's got a funny watch." Ramon didn't know that the watch was a compass but he knew McKay well enough to be confident that McKay's confidence in the "funny watch" would not be misplaced - even in country that "looks all the same". The Hannassey boys mistook McKay's forbearance for cowardice. This was to be expected of them because they were young and foolish so McKay is understanding of it. However, when the woman who has declared her love for him construes his forbearance as cowardice, it is another matter. Julie asks Pat, "How many times does a man have to win you?" Exactly! McKay does not need to live out a lifetime of proving himself to others and a man like that is very rare. For most of us, we live lives in which what we own or what we do just have to be acknowledged over and over. Worse still, we often forget that people like Ramon are not idiots simply because they are uneducated "ranch hands" or express views that don't coincide with our own. The messages so skilfully hidden within a film about a grudge match between two old tyrants in the wild west are a testament to the screenwriter's craft.
This is a film about prejudice on a number of levels. The Mexican ranch hand, Ramon, is disregarded and even called an idiot by the ranch's owner, Henry Terrill, when he tells him and daughter, Pat, not to worry about McKay going off on his own to explore the ranch. "I don't think he'll get lost. He's a very smart man. And he's got a funny watch." Ramon didn't know that the watch was a compass but he knew McKay well enough to be confident that McKay's confidence in the "funny watch" would not be misplaced - even in country that "looks all the same". The Hannassey boys mistook McKay's forbearance for cowardice. This was to be expected of them because they were young and foolish so McKay is understanding of it. However, when the woman who has declared her love for him construes his forbearance as cowardice, it is another matter. Julie asks Pat, "How many times does a man have to win you?" Exactly! McKay does not need to live out a lifetime of proving himself to others and a man like that is very rare. For most of us, we live lives in which what we own or what we do just have to be acknowledged over and over. Worse still, we often forget that people like Ramon are not idiots simply because they are uneducated "ranch hands" or express views that don't coincide with our own. The messages so skilfully hidden within a film about a grudge match between two old tyrants in the wild west are a testament to the screenwriter's craft.