It’s a Big Country

It’s a Big Country

Directed by Clarence Brown, Don Hartman, John Sturges, Richard Thorpe, Charles Vidor, Don Weis, and William A. Wellman. 89 mins. (1951)

Gary Cooper – Texas

A patriotic anthology of eight independent stories celebrating the diversity of American life, framed by a university lecture and brought to life through a gallery of MGM stars portraying symbolic regional and cultural portraits across the United States.

Also starring Ethel Barrymore, Keefe Brasselle, Nancy Reagan, Janet Leigh, Gene Kelly, and Louis Calhern (narrator).

This MGM ensemble production assembles many of the studio’s leading directors and performers in a postwar tribute to American identity. Gary Cooper appears in the segment “Texas,” a tongue-in-cheek homage to the state’s outsized mythology.