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James McKay, a Baltimore gentleman, retires from the sea and travels to the Southwestern village of San Rafael to claim the hand of Pat Terrill, the spoilt daughter of Major Henry Terrill, the richest man in the district. Set upon by a drunken gang of Hannassey boys, whose father Rufus has long feuded with the Major over water rights, McKay disappoints Pat by refusing to fight back, and by trying to prevent her father's brutal reprisals. The Hannasseys make the next move by kidnapping Julie Maragon, owner of the Big Muddy stretch which lies between the rivals' grazing grounds, and promising her freedom when she sells them the disputed land. But McKay, who has left Pat and fallen in love with Julie, has already bought Big Muddy in a last attempt to end the feud by offering both sides equal access to water. He now rides into the Hannasseys' retreat to rescue Julie, and eventually accomplishes his mission - but only after the two old men have killed each other in a final encounter.

Though its basic story - the feud over water - is familiar and its physical action slight, The Big Country has been blown up into a long, ambitious Western in the style of Giant. In an attempt to support its size, it fumbles tentatively with the pacifist implications of Wyler's previous film, Friendly Persuasion, and devotes considerable attention to the dramatic values of contrast and choice - between the modest courage of McKay and the inflamed self-assertion of the foreman, Leech; between the thoughtless selfishness of Pat and the simple integrity of Julie; between the aristocracy of the Terrills and the squalor of the Hannasseys. Sometimes these points are made effectively, as in McKay's private struggle to master a wild stallion. But for the most part the approach is superficial and pedestrian, and reaches its most embarrassingly explicit Boy's Own level in the beautifully shot love-hate fight between McKay and Leech by the light of the moon. Relationships never crystallise; attempts to explore the manners and appearances of the period are defeated by visual clichés and the almost hygienic beauty of the pictorial compositions; the kidnapping episode is weakly contrived; and the pivotal character of McKay, played on a monotonously self-righteous note by Gregory Peck, never comes alive. It is mainly due to the power of the climactic canyon battle, and Burl Ives' interesting playing as Rufus, that this remains a not unsympathetic film, decorated pleasantly by Jean Simmons and with spirit by Carroll Baker.

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