Watch So Big! For Free

Very best movie i ever watch

So much average

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

So many viewers have found this film wonderful that I would hate to spoil the pleasure for those who have not seen it yet and might find it the same… so if you are intent on viewing the film anyway, maybe just watch it and make your own opinion before possibly coming back to mine afterwards. On the other hand, if you are not quite sure yet whether you want to watch So Big, rather than another one of the myriad of outstanding or just pleasant Barbara Stanwyck's movies of the period, then you might compare the following dissenting viewpoint with others and decide. First let me state that I am an unconditional admirer of Stanwyck. She has been one of the strongest talents of Hollywood, if not the strongest, with a very wide acting range which enabled her to play mostly everything and never to be dull. So big! was certainly not a film beyond her capacities - actually there is not really much to reproach her, apart from the simple fact that she is not so credible as bright city girl Selina supposedly enjoying for years the dullest possible farm life. And apart also from the fact that while she seems to age like twenty years in the very first first few years of her married farm life, after that she appears to have aged not even a bit more when we meet her again twenty long years later – she is without a wrinkle and with the smooth velvety face and hands of the twenty-five-year-old actress she is, not of the hard-and long-toiling farmer lady she is supposed to be. Possibly asparagus farming is a secret recipe for some wonders? Anyway, so good for her glamour, but so much for making us believe that she really is that nice granny-like lady. But these are indeed very minor qualms. The serious ones are with the film itself. And for that, blame probably the old-fashioned views of author Edna Ferber on women's condition and the admirability of their sacrifice, but blame also, sad to say, the for once unsteady hand of generally admirable director William Wellman. First, for such a short film it has a long and boring start. All the time taken to introduce the heavily-caricatured hick family she lands into, then the equally laughable hick village community, is really misspent, everything there is to understand about it being clear after only two minutes – and not much fun, rather embarrassing in its patronizing way to depict the poor farmers' community. And then the husband, yet one more uneducated slow-witted though rather nicer hick, but definitely not an even remotely inspiring person for Stanwyck to fall into his arms, at least out of any more positive feeling than sheer resignation to her fate. Second, about three quarters of the film has already elapsed until something really happens – but almost immediately after that, whoops, unexpected fast forward twenty years. As mentioned earlier Selina has not changed a bit but her infant son Dirk is now a tall handsome young city professional. And unfortunately, the film mostly stops paying much interest to her and moves to Chicago to deal with the uninteresting professional and sentimental life of this uninspiring young man. The unintended reaction being, "did she really sacrifice the best years of her life for this young jerk, and is this supposed to be an example?". Therefore the last quarter of the film, while very different, would be even slightly more uninteresting if it was not saved from complete boredom by the arrival of a young and sprightly Bette Davis, who puts young Dirk back in the right track of following the hard but inspiring life of an architect rather than the prosperous but soul-stifling one of a bond trader. Not that we care very much about him going one way or the other, but at least it confirms belatedly that Selina' life of admirable sacrifice has not been spent in vain. And that's the third issue. The life of Selina is indeed supposed to be so admirable, and therefore so touching, as well as so inspiring. As to touching, hard to say : after the first part when Selina has landed in exactly the wrong place and with the wrong husband, we do not her spend the next twenty years and come to terms with that life – we understand she did it all for the sake of precious Dirk, but with no means to know whether enduring or eventually enjoying that life. And as to inspiring : if a young lady who makes a silly choice of job location, then doubles it with an even sillier choice of husband, then trebles it by making countless sacrifices for a son who seems to be a spoiled and rather ungrateful jerk – if the value of such a sacrifice is measured only by its price, then Selina is indeed an inspiring role model. I have my doubts about that. Stanwyck will land a similar role a few years later in the much better Stella Dallas, the big difference being that her sacrifice is shown there as pathetic, not admirable. However, Selina is supposedly an example because she takes to heart the life motto of her late gambling father, more or less, "take gracefully whatever life serves you, and then just follow your heart to make the best of it". Why not - this is what Selina teaches to her pupil Roelf and her son Dirk. Except that for them boys, this means following one's envies to become a sculptor or an architect, whereas for Selina, it means submitting to the rather dirty hand that fate (as well as your own decisions) has dealt you, housewife then widow and self-sacrificing mother, and forgetting about any other hopes. Not much of a real choice there, actually. Unless one believes she really stayed as she once asserted for the unsung beauty of cabbage fields?

SO BIG! (Warner Brothers, 1932), directed by William A. Wellman, based on the Pulitzer Prize novel by Edna Ferber, is a story of a woman, a woman named Selina Peake. First filmed as a silent for First National Pictures (1925) starring Colleen Moore and Ben Lyon, this latest edition, which could have been Warners' contribution to their own version to a two hour epic production to RKO Radio's Edna Ferber based novel of CIMARRON (1931), this "passage through time" story, falls short to becoming nothing more than an abridged screen treatment where much of its basic characters and chaptered selections are either discarded or presented for a few brief minutes. The only character of main importance is Selina Peake. Overlooking an off-beat title that has nothing to do with the Jolly Green Giant, this is her story, a story of a woman.Opening title: "Chicago - in the 80's, booming, prosperous, surging with life - the gateway to the Great West." The five minute prologue introduces Selina Peake (Dawn O'Day, the future Anne Shirley), a motherless child whose father, Simeon (Robert Warwick), is a compulsive gambler but dedicated to his little girl. While dining at the Palmer House, he tells Selina something to remember, "This whole thing called life is just a grand adventure." Moving forward about ten years. Selina Peake (Barbara Stanwyck), having graduated from the Select School for Girls, is best friends with classmate Julie Hemple (Mae Madison). After Peake is shot dead at Mike MacDonald's Gambling House, Mrs. Hemple (Eulalie Jensen), refuses to have her daughter associated with Selina and her father's gambling reputation. Through the kindness Julie's father, August (a character initially played by Guy Kibbee whose scenes don't appear in the final print) secures Selina a school teaching position in a Dutch community for farmers at High Prairie outside Chicago. While boarding in the home of the Poole's, Klaus (Alan Hale), Maartjie (Dorothy Peterson), and three children, their eldest son, 12-year-old Roelfe (Dick Winslow), with a quest for knowledge and talent for drawing, spends most of his time helping his father on the farm rather than acquiring an education. Selina, who finds "cabbages are beautiful," gets an education of her own when learning that fertilizer is dried blood. Roelfe, who has grown fond of Selina, becomes jealous of her marriage to Pervus DeJong (Earle Foxe). Because of his mother's death and father marrying the Widow Parrenburg (Blanche Frederici), Roelfe, who has always hated his existence, leaves home to make something of himself. The recently widowed Selina would do the same thing, seeking a better life for both her and her young son, Dirk (Dickie Moore), whom she affectionately calls "So Big." Move forward twenty years. Dirk, a young man (Hardie Albright), is torn between pursuing his mother's dream of becoming an architect or assuming the advise of the married Paula Storm (Rita LaRoy) by becoming a Wall Street businessman. During the course of the story, Dallas O'Mara (Bette Davis), an ambitious artist, not only enters the scene, but Rolfe Poole (George Brent), a famous artist, returning home from Europe to reunite himself with someone who's been an inspiration in his life.For Barbara Stanwyck, SO BIG shows how she can be more than just one of the LADIES OF LEISURE (1930), THE MIRACLE WOMAN (1931) or NIGHT NURSE (1931), but an actress going through the aging process from young woman in her twenties to mother in her fifties, who curtsies every time she meets new people. In its present 82 minute format, SO BIG, with so much material crammed into so short of time, is one of those ambitious projects that should have been expanded by more than a half hour to allow more time for viewers to become better acquainted with both characters and story. Yet, even through its tight editing, the pacing is slow and characters undeveloped. Although it's difficult to compare this with the now lost 1925 edition, its easy to compare this with the existing 1953 remake of SO BIG starring Jane Wyman, Sterling Hayden and Nancy Olson. On a personal level, the newest of the three improves over the 1932 effort on a plot developing level leading to a satisfactory conclusion. The similarity of both versions contains that of Selina Peake repeatedly asking her son, "How big is my baby? How big is my boy?" Son replies, "SO Big!" hence the title of the book.Aside from being relatively known to film scholars as the one where future superstars Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis appear in the same movie, but barely the same scenes, the film itself had been unavailable for viewing for many years, with the possibility of never to be seen or heard from again. It took a cable station such as Turner Classic Movies to bring this long unseen edition back from the dead, making its long awaited television premiere of clear picture quantity on November 18, 1999. In spite of few highlights of interest, and having to wait eternity for the appearance of Bette Davis and George Brent, SO BIG, with Stanwyck's ability to hold audience's attention throughout, still ranks one as worthy of both rediscovery and recognition, even if this story of a woman is not so big. (***)

There is no doubt in my mind after viewing this picture from way back in the early 30's, that this is a great Classic with great actors. Most of these actors, Barbara Stanwyck,"Dynasty" '85 TV series, were just starting their careers along with Bette Davis, (Miss Dallas O'Mara),"The Old Maid",'33 and George Brent, (Roelf Pool),"The Spiral Staircase",'46. In this picture Stanwyck plays a woman who was very close to her dad, who was a gambler and once he died, she had no choice but to take on a teaching position in Kansas and wound up married to a farmer. This is a wonderful story of a woman who raises her children against all the set backs that life has to offer and how she deals with each problem that seems to face her, which she calls Velvet. Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis never got a long together when making a film and they both made very few. Stanwyck was always outgoing with the stage hands and crew and Bette Davis just did her acting job and no socializing with the regular people. I must say that Bette Davis looked fantastic in this picture and of course she was a great actress.

This movie is simple and true to the tale it tells.The casting is fine and honorable. Barbara Stanwyck is very touching as the young schoolteacher in a rural area.The way she arrives at the name for the person who is the tile character is sweet and genuine. When we flash forward, and she is made up to look genuinely older, he is a real pill, and our hearts break. But what better salvation for a young man on the make could there be than the young, blonde Bette Davis, forceful and sympathetic as an artist who turns him around so his mother can again be proud of him.