After a dynamic start to his movie career, Kirk Douglas suffered his first major flops in 1952 with two Westerns, The Big Trees and The Big Sky. This film, directed by Howard Hawks, is certainly the more ambitious of the two, originally premiered at two hours 20 minutes, but later cut to around two hours, the version on show here. Even at the shorter length, it's still a leisurely saga that badly needs Technicolor and a lot more action to give gusto to its story of three Kentuckian frontiersmen at the turn of the 19th century. Jim Davis, later Jock Ewing in Dallas, plays a villain, one-film wonder Elizabeth Threatt is striking as an Indian princess, Dmitri Tiomkin contributes a typically haunting score, and the scenery (the film was largely shot in Grand Teton National Park) is imposing even in black and white.

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