Giant
Short description
Giant follows a wealthy Texas rancher, Jordan "Bick" Benedict, who meets and marries Leslie Lynnton while traveling east to buy a horse. She returns with him to his sprawling ranch, where she finds herself out of step with his world, particularly its casual prejudice against the local Mexican community. Among the ranch hands is Jett Rink, who resents his position and carries an unspoken attachment to Leslie. When Jett comes into a small piece of land and strikes oil there, his sudden fortune transforms him into a powerful rival to the Benedict family, and the tensions between the two men and their households carry into the next generation.
The film was directed by George Stevens, who had previously made A Place in the Sun and Shane. It is based on Edna Ferber's novel and stars Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean, whose character Jett Rink became one of his best-known roles. The large credited cast also includes Carroll Baker, Jane Withers and Chill Wills.
Released by Warner Bros. with a budget of about 5 million dollars, the film earned roughly 33 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for its time. It runs 201 minutes. On IMDb it holds 7.6 out of 10 from around 45,000 votes, and on TMDB it also scores 7.6 from a much smaller group of voters. Its critics' rating stands at 7.7 from 50 reviews, in close agreement with general audiences. Stevens followed it with The Diary of Anne Frank and The Greatest Story Ever Told.
What's left behind the scenes
- An adaptation of the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.
- Capitol Records, which released part of the soundtrack recorded under the direction of Dmitri Tiomkin by the Warner Brothers orchestra on laser discs, later restored the compositions using digital processing and released them on CDs along with two tracks recorded with Ray Heindorf.
- William Holden was the primary candidate for the role of Bick Benedict. George Stevens gave Rock Hudson, who ultimately played Benedict, the opportunity to choose his partner for the role of Leslie – Elizabeth Taylor or Grace Kelly. Hudson chose the former.
- In 2005, the film was added to the National Film Registry, possessing “cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.”
- Barbara Barrie played her first film role in "Giant." Actress Carroll Baker, Elizabeth Taylor’s screen daughter, is actually a year younger than her "mother."
- Director George Stevens wanted to cast Alan Ladd as Rink, but his wife advised against it. She then turned her attention to James Dean. To play scenes of Jett in his older years, James Dean had his hair cut and dyed gray. Near the end of the film, there’s a scene where Dean’s drunken character delivers a speech at a banquet. Among Dean’s former colleagues and fans, this scene is known as “The Last Supper,” as it was the last scene filmed before the actor’s unexpected death. Dean mumbled so convincingly while portraying drunkenness that the scene had to be re-dubbed with another actor – Nick Adams – during editing. Because of this, the film spent almost a year in the editing room.
- Most of the scenes were filmed in the vicinity of the town of Marfa, Texas, including the desert plains.
- Glenn Herbert McCarthy (1907–1988), a real-life oil tycoon, served as the prototype for Jett Rink. Writer Edna Ferber met McCarthy while he was living at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, which was renamed Emperador in the film.
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