So Big (1953) User Reviews

Ode To The Agricultural Life

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 8 May 2011]

In the third and final big screen adaption of Edna Ferber's novel, Jane Wyman essays the role of the schoolteacher who moves into a community of Dutch immigrant farmers in the Midwest and changes her life forever as she goes from rich débutante to a farmer's wife and widow. Wyman takes pride in her work and her child whom she nicknames So Big.

Jane's family fortune was lost when her parents died and she was forced by circumstance to become a schoolteacher. She's assigned to the Midwest town of New Holland and she works hard to teach the Dutch immigrant children. She also meets and weds sturdy farmer Sterling Hayden who leaves her a widow with a child and a farm to manage.

She meets the challenge and in doing so finds what Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh called 'the nobility of toil' in her work. So Big is Edna Ferber's ode to the agricultural life, there is indeed something special in seeing the seeds you plant grow into something. It's a lesson she imparts to her son who when he's full grown is played by Steve Forest. Forest in fact becomes an architect, but his mom literally and figuratively drags him back down to earth every so often.

Wyman's best scenes are with the various children who play her son Dirk, aka So Big at various stages of life. The film probably deserved to run a bit longer because I don't think all of Edna Ferber's thoughts were translated to the screen. Still So Big holds up well as fine family entertainment, as good as it was when released in 1953.

Vintage Wyman in a four-hankie tear-jerker

[aromatic-2 · 8/10 · 22 May 2000]

If you like terrific acting, triumphs over adversity, laced with plenty of life's heartbreaks, So Big is what Hollywood does best for you. Contrived? A bit. Overly Theatrical? guilty as charged. Gripping melodrama from beginning to end? You bet. It's all relationship-driven so men who disdain "chick-flicks" should leave this one alone. All others should find it as wonderful as I do.

Jane Wyman, the original independent woman

[mls4182 · 7/10 · 9 December 2021]

Jane Wyman has made every type of film there is. She had been miscast in comedic and romantic roles. She is best as the independent woman, struggling and succeeding on her own. She gives a great performance in this film.

The beginning is awkward, since it starts with a romance with Sterling Hayden. Their scenes are awkward, and not because of the disturbing mental pictures you get because of her 5'2" height to his 6'4" frame. Neither is suited fir romantic scenes,

The middle is all about Jane's character is the best.

The last third of the film just falls apart. The focus switches to the son, who has changed from the sweet boy to an ambitious man.

It is still worth watching.

Why Robert Wise?

[tpatbour · 7/10 · 12 September 2007]

This is a remake of the 1932 version starring the great Barbara Stanwyck. Not quite a shot-for-shot remake. This version is longer and includes some material the original left out and has a slightly more cynical ending than the original. All you need to know about the first version is Warner Bros./ First National/ Vitaphone, which equates to a mass produced, assembly line product running typically 60-80 minutes in length. That's just how most Hollywood films were in the early 30s. And often times, the movie suffered, as a result. All that being said, this version is considerably better.

Jane Wyman is great as always, and by this time in her career, she was able to be much more selective of the types of roles she chose. Sterling Hayden is pretty much the same in every role he ever appeared in: stoic; regardless of the material. Nancy Olson does a good job, but is not on screen hardly at all. The biggest problem, however, is Steve Forrest as Wyman's son. He's stiff, bland, and doesn't appear to have any acting ability whatsoever.

The most curious aspect of this picture, however, is it's director,... Robert Wise. Wise first made a name for himself early on as the editor for Orson Welles' first two films, "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons". This is one of only a few directors (the other 2 who come to mind: Howard Hawks and George Cukor) who made a movie in every genre. And to go a step further, he made masterpieces in every genre except perhaps comedy and western (horror- "The Body Snatcher", "The Haunting"; sci-fi- "The Day the Earth Stood Still", film noir- "The Set-Up", "Odds Against Tomorrow", musical- "West Side Story", "The Sound of Music", drama- "The Sand Pebbles", "Somebody Up There Likes Me")

Does this sound like someone who should be directing a remake of "So Big"? (He already had "The Set-Up" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" under his belt.) That's not to say there's anything wrong with this picture. It is what it is: an above average melodrama. The point is a much less talented director could have handled it. It always amazes me how such a brilliant man like this wasn't appreciated more. His career was filled with films just like this, sandwiched in between his great ones. It was quite common at that time for directors to be assigned to direct something, often without even having a chance to read the script before deciding whether they wanted to or not. Saying 'No' to the studio bosses wasn't much of an option either, if you wanted to keep working. And I can't help but wonder if that was the case quite frequently with Wise as well, directing whatever he was told to. As a result, he's never mentioned with the great directors, and that's very unfortunate. If you haven't already, make it a point to start watching his movies. Not just his masterpieces, all of them. This is a great director who deserves to be more recognized.

Engrossing soap opera but superficial...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 3 September 2010]

Despite the above cited drawback, this Edna Ferber story of a mother's love with that stifling title, SO BIG, seems aimed at the tear ducts to give JANE WYMAN another chance to show how well she can age from young woman to maturity to old age with a nice array of expressions and changes of hairdo and make-up.

She's really the best thing about SO BIG. It's story is a simple, even trite saga of a woman who wants all the best things for her son, especially since she has to rear him single-handedly once her husband (farmer STERLING HAYDEN) dies. Hayden gives such a persuasive performance that once he's gone, the picture suffers from his untimely death and the remaining scenes never achieve the same intensity of the earlier ones. Brief performances from dependable players like NANCY OLSON, MARTHA HYER and a very young RICHARD BEYMER help sustain interest in the long-winded plot.

There is an appropriately agreeable score by Max Steiner to emphasize the soap suds and the usual dramatics, but this somehow misses the mark as what should have been a superior vehicle of its kind despite having all the trimmings.

STEVE FORREST, as Wyman's "so big" son, has moments when his resemblance to real-life brother Dana Andrews is remarkable. Unfortunately, his role is poorly written without giving him the chance to show much acting range.

Jane is the Big One

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 25 September 2022]

Selina (Jane Wyman) is a happy student in a pricey girls' boarding school. Her world is turned upside down when her father dies leaving her alone and broke. She is reluctant to accept any help. She becomes a teacher in small rural town. She nurtures student Roelf, and he develops a crush on her. She marries farmer Pervus De Jong (Sterling Hayden) and they have a son, Dirk nickname So Big.

There is a bit of sentimental hokum and melodrama in this film. It's calling back to an olden times and olden ways. It's trying very hard to push the ideals of substance over money. Through it all, Jane Wyman maintains its sincerity. When she leaves the screen, the movie struggles. She is the biggest One of them all. This movie wants to be an old time character epic and I want it for Jane. She pulls it through the finish line. Her reunion with Roelf is ten times more compelling than all of Dirk's drama.

Another Edna Ferber woman

[marcslope · 7/10 · 3 September 2010]

While practically nobody else was doing so, Edna Ferber was writing women who didn't accept their lot in life, challenged men, proved more mature and responsible than men, and maintained their femininity while doing so. An archetypal Ferber woman is the heroine of "So Big," played, a little monotonously, by Jane Wyman. (She's too old to be convincing as a young girl, and too young to be a convincing timeworn old woman.) Sprawling through decades of American history like so many Ferber doorstop novels, it's fine melodrama, though oddly shaped--many years of Selina's existence are just missing, and the third act, with son Steve Forrest chasing after Nancy Olson, feels like an afterthought, as do many of the supporting characters, played by a mostly no-name cast. Sterling Hayden, as the love of Wyman's life, is an odd character, too--he clearly loves Selina, yet laughs at her attempts at betterment and is a terrible chauvinist; you feel Ferber kills him off because she honestly doesn't know what to do with him. An uncharacteristically unmemorable Max Steiner score grinds in the background, the photography is a black-and-white eyeful, and the biggest surprise is how good young Richard Beymer is, as an adolescent with a crush on Wyman--eight years later, again under Robert Wise's direction, he starred in "West Side Story," and was terrible.

Hollywood at its best

[ralphsampson · 10/10 · 8 July 2001]

Remarkable soaper gets bravura lead performance by Jane Wyman. The scenes in New Holland are excellent with young Richard Beymer a standout as a student who has a crush on Wyman. Steve Forrest is excellent as Wyman's son. Martha Hyer is a bit out of her league as the would-be vamp seeking to lead Forrest astray. But, why quibble? The production values are first-rate, the writing is excellent, and the score is magnificent.

A mediocre melodrama

[rdoyle29 · 6/10 · 7 January 2023]

Jane Wyman is an affluent young schoolgirl in late 19th century Chicago whose father manages to lose his fortune and his life in one afternoon. Destitute, she is forced to accept a job as a school teacher in a nearby farm town, moving in with the family of local farmer Roland Winters.

His son Richard Beymer doesn't attend school because he needs to work on the farm, but Wyman realizes he has a taste for literature and music. She gives him private lessons after school, and soon he's developed a crush on Wyman. But Wyman has fallen for local farmer Sterling Hayden and they soon marry.

Wyman and Hayden have a son whom she nicknames "So Big" due to his rapid growth. She realizes he shares her interest in the arts and starts planning a better future for him. But Hayden dies and Wyman ends up having to run the farm herself. She faces hardships, but eventually turns the farm around and earns enough growing fine asparagus (!) to send So Big, now grown up to be Steve Forrest, off to college to become their shared dream ... an architect.

Forrest graduates and becomes a draftsman at an architecture firm, but impatience with his lack of advancement and prompting from his society girlfriend leads him to abandon his dream and become a salesman. Wyman is crushed, but Forrest earns piles of money and is happy until he meets artist Nancy Olson, whom he loves, but she dumps him because he isn't an architect.

This adaptation of Edna Ferber's much adapted novel is Robert Wise's first foray into a genre he will return to many times in the 1950's ... decidedly middle-brow, literate melodramas. This one is extremely hard to find, probably because it's not terribly good and has very little to offer modern audiences.

Wyman plays the main character from schoolgirl to old lady without changing a single aspect of her performance. Hayden is lively and virile as the big, dumb farmer, but he's in far too little of the film to really bring it to life. It's a strange, very episodic melodrama that seems to want to push the idea of artistic values over commerce while very clearly being an example of the latter over the former.

Values

[christian7 · 10/10 · 21 January 2003]

I enjoyed the movie, not just because of the cast, but because of the faithfulness to detail, r/t the actual book, "So Big" by Ferber. It shows the values of responsibility not just to our work, but to people, and to the beauty that is all around us, if we would just open our eyes and see it.

"I must have both emeralds and wheat in my life" : Selina

[weezeralfalfa · 8/10 · 15 September 2020]

Such an interesting soap opera! Charismatic Jane Wyman, as Selina(or Lina), foregoes her glamorous image, as she did in "Johnny Belinda" and "The Yearling", to become the wife of a very poor truck farmer, in a small Dutch farming community, just outside of Chicago. A few years later, when her husband dies, she takes over the business, spending much time in the field herself, eventually making the farm much more profitable by selling gourmet vegies, enabling her to send her son, So Big, to architecture school..........People were shocked when this pretty young school teacher decided to marry untutored poor farmer Pervus DeLong. Selina explained that she needed wheat, as well as emeralds in her life. By this , she meant, people involved in producing the basic necessities of life, as well as people who produced or appreciated beauty, such as the arts. Her husband provided the former, but not the latter. Fortunately, she detected facility in art in her young son. Also, she recognized an interest in music in the neighbor child Roelf, thus giving him piano lessons. Unfortunately, when Roelf's mother died, he moved far away. However, near the end of the film, Roelf, having become a famous music composer, returned for a visit, and met an art producer, Dallas, who had moved there recently. They became friendly, but the film leaves us to speculate upon their possible future together........Meanwhile, So Big had gone to architecture school, and begun an apprenticeship. However, he became engaged to the pretty daughter of Selina's childhood friend: Paula. Unfortunately, Paula is an ambitious social climber, and talks So Big into abandoning his apprenticeship for the quicker route to wealth, by becoming a businessman or stock broker. Selina is very disappointed, saying So Big will now be no different from a 1000 other businessmen, rather than exercising his unusual gift as an architect. But, when So Big meets Dallas, he becomes enamored of her, and asks her to marry him. Unfortunately, Dallas declines, saying she wants a husband involved in a hands on profession. Thus, Dallas is much like Selina in her basic wants, and becomes friendly with Selina. Unfortunately for So Big, Paula detected So Big's attraction to Dallas, thus broke off their engagement, finding another prospect. So Big now laments to his mother that he has seemingly lost both his human loves, as well as his preferred profession as an architect. Selina tries to comfort him, saying it's not too late for him to return to being an architect.........This screenplay was ultimately adapted from Edna Ferber's novel of the same name, although there was also a 1932 movie of the same, starring Barbara Stanwick. The book won the 1925 Pulitzer prize for a novel, and was inspired by the life of Antje Paarlberg, who grew up in the same North Holland Dutch community featured in this film(not to be confused with the tiny Dutch settlement of New Holland, in central Illinois).

So Big So Good Up to A Point ***1/2

[edwagreen · 8/10 · 9 April 2012]

My major criticism of this 1953 film was that it should have run longer. It should have shown Dirk move back gradually into the field of architecture and get the girl portrayed by Nancy Olson. When the picture ends, neither has occurred.

In the 1950s Jane Wyman was in somber mode. After garnering the Oscar for "Johnny Belinda," in 1948, she followed that up with another nomination for the all-time tear-jerker "The Blue Veil," in 1951 and the remake of "Magnificent Obsession," the year after 'Big.' "All that Heaven Allows" came in '56 and "Miracle in the Rain" completed her tear-jerking screen performances.

In this film she suffers the heartbreak of the losses of her father and husband, the latter a dirt farmer. As her husband, Sterling Hayden captured the essence of the simplistic life.

I wonder if this picture were trying to emulate O.E. Rolvaag's "Giants in the Earth," a marvelous book about mid-western farming with its trials and tribulations.

As taught by her father in the film, Wyman becomes a rugged individualist. She is a strong, firm believer in achieving by yourself what you are destined to do. She teaches those principles to her son who disappoints her by going into the sales portion of architecture instead of the profession itself after college.

Wyman never lets son Steve Forrest know of her disappointment and he comes to realize how right she was. Martha Hyer is her usual upper-class matron with values consisting of making the big dollars.

This is still another of Wyman's gut-wrenching performances, but she had better in the films mentioned above. Still, this is a story of perseverance, hard work, and endurance.