It's a Big Country

With spacious skies, amber fields and alabaster cities gleaming, with E Pluribus Unum and red, white and bally-hoo, It's a Big Country celebrates the USA with a star-studded array of eight slice-of-life vignettes. Among highlights: a train passenger (William Powell) sets another traveler (James Whitmore) straight about how America defies simple description; an elderly widow (Ethel Barrymore) seeks to be counted in the census; a documentary montage lauds African-Americans; a saddled-up lone star (Gary Cooper) drolly extols the Lone Star State; and Icarus Xenophon (Gene Kelly) finds love (with Janet Leigh) and wrath from her Greek-loathing father (S. Z. Sakall). The stars shine brightly over this big, grand, heart-tugging country.

Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas.