Just watched this for the first time in probably 30 years. As a kid, I enjoyed it immensely. Now, sorry to say, it dates badly. 1971 was a landmark year for groundbreaking movies like KLUTE, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, STRAW DOGS, THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE CONFORMIST, to name a few. There were also a smattering of films like BIG JAKE that uncomfortably mixed elements from "old" and "new" Hollywood.
The "new" elements in this would be, as the OP and previous posters have pointed out, the graphically-violent opening. The "old" would be the "humorous" fist-fights, John Wayne's dog that apparently understood English, and (the worst gaffe of all, in my opinion) people shot at point-blank range with double-barrel shotguns that don't shed a drop of blood! And let's not forget veteran (and very Caucasian) actor Bruce Cabot playing an Indian! Also, death was treated in a very light-hearted, slipshod manner. When someone was killed, even an important character, no one ever made reference to it, or shed a tear. This was especially glaring in the end, which is probably the weakest part of an already-spotty film.
If you're going to portray violence in a film, you have to be consistent, and this hand an uneasy mix of graphic and sanitized violence that, at least for this viewer, took me out of the movie completely. I, for one, also think that if you're going to portray violence in a film, it's the responsibility of the filmmakers to do so realistically: which means that it should make you wince, and look away, not "entertain" and/or titillate. The tone in BIG JAKE is all over the place: graphically violent one minute, slapstick humor the next, '70s gritty and '50s sanitized almost simultaneously. And what was with that made-for-TV-style opening about what was happening around the country in 1909? Those people and things were never referred to again.
I'm a huge fan of The Duke and Richard Boone is terrific here (as always), but this is one of Wayne's lesser efforts, I'm sorry to say. At least he finished on a high note a few years later with THE SHOOTIST being both one of his best as well as his swan song.
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ecarle
11 years ago
I have recently returned my post about "Big Jake" being a "secret classic" to the top of the board so I stand by my liking for it even if the production is a bit slipshod and on the cheap side.
What I would like to specify here is that the bloody violence of the opening slaughter owes itself to three developments prior to Big Jake:
1. Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. For many decades, men didn't bleed when shot, then in the sixties occasionally there would be a "spot of blood" on their shirts as they expired. But Peckinpah -- taking his lead from "Bonnie and Clyde" -- elected to have bullets create fountains of blood both out the front and through the backs of the victims...and there was no going back, really. Oh, a few comedy Westerns would still just have men fall down dead, but most Westerns moved quickly to "bursting blood bags." "Big Jake" was no exception..and they burst in "The Shootist," too.
2. Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry." It came out the same year as "Big Jake" -- 1971 -- though "Jake" was earlier(summer to "Harry" at Christmas.) But they shared the same screenwriter(not solely, but partially) and in many ways, they are the same film: the villain(s) is/are utterly depraved and evil, capable of killing men AND women AND children -- and only a rather "mean and mericiless" HERO("Dirty Harry," "Big Jake") can possibly bring such monsters down.
The two movies also share "pithy speeches":
Harry: I know what you're thinkin'. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement(etc)
Jake(AFter Boone says it first) Now you listen to me: anything goes wrong -- your fault, my fault -- NOBODY's fault -- I'm gonna blow your head off.
If you look at "Dirty Harry" and "Big Jake" as a literal "matched pair," they make a lot of sense together(and "Harry" is a "modern Western.")
3. 1971. It has been said that the film years of 1971-1972 were about the most violent in movie history. The "R" rating was a few years old, so lots of "R" movies were put out, and many had rapes to go with their killings(Dirty Harry, Straw Dogs, Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, HItchcock's Frenzy). And The French Connection and The Godfather were plenty violent WITHOUT rape.
"Big Jake" left out any rape or sexual violence against women or men -- which is why(ha) it got a "PG." (The "PG-13" had not been invented yet.) JOhn Wayne likely would not have appeared in a "R" rated film, but the non-sexual violence is plentiful in "Big Jake," "The Cowboys," "Cahill, US Marshal" and " The SHootist."
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