Spanning a good thirty years, Giant tells the tale of the Benedicts, a Texas family on an immense cattle range. The patriarch is Rock Hudson, whom we first meet as a young man visiting Maryland to buy a horse. There he meets Elizabeth Taylor and falls in love. His new bride initially finds Texas difficult to adjust to, and Texas has difficulty adjusting to her, as she does not hold with the local attitudes towards women and, most especially, Mexicans. The third major player is James Dean, a rather sullen ranch hand who winds up changing everybody’s lives when he strikes oil on his small parcel of land.

This is a big film, with big scope, big stars, big performances, big virtues, and big flaws. It is at its best as it works out the family dynamics, with Hudson and Taylor bouncing off each other.James Dean, though he has comparatively little screen time, turns in a remarkable performance,and as the characters move into middle-age, his is the most convincing transformation. The film is at its weakest in its ham-fisted handling of the racial issues. These scenes play out in deeply predictable fashion, and the symbolism of the final scene is so obvious, yet takes itself so seriously, that the film ends on a note of high camp. But even these problems make up part of the charm, and its 201 minutes go by surprisingly quickly. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore,and nor should they, but thank God they did in 1956.