Giant

January 1, 2018

Director George Stevens's 1956 Giant, starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean, was an epic film based on the 1952 best-selling novel by Edna Ferber about a powerful Texas ranching family, big oil, and changing times. The film also tackled racism and the suppression of women in a patriarchal society. However, despite public success, the film didn't fare well with critics then, nor has it done well with film historians since. This well-researched book (47 pages of notes) by Graham (English, Univ. of Texas; Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire) wants to change that. He feels that the "film keeps finding new ways to speak to Americans across the decades." His book reports on all of the drama of making such a sweeping film in a desolate Texas location with three high-strung competitive stars. Giant went on to receive nine Oscar nominations. Stevens, who was a World War II veteran, won a Best Director Oscar, and he and his cinematographer Bill Mellor, also a World War II vet, often asked each other which was tougher, the war or Giant. VERDICT Serious film scholars will enjoy this, but one wonders if this much detail on a 61-year-old film will interest casual filmgoers or celebrity mavens.--Rosellen Brewer, Sno-Isle Libs., Marysville, WA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 8, 2018
Graham (State of Minds), a University of Texas English professor who’s written several books on his state’s culture and representation in film, returns with a lively but undistinguished production history of Giant, George Steven’s 1956 epic. Graham devotes individual chapters to exploring various stages of production and to providing quick biographies of the film’s major players, who included three of the biggest movie stars of the time: Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean. These sections in particular feel like missed opportunities, often coming across as gossipy and devoid of empathy for the stars’ personal challenges, such as Hudson’s need to conceal his sexuality in a homophobic era. Dean’s death, which occurred while the film was in postproduction, is also discussed, though this account doesn’t bring anything new to the table. There is some evocative writing about Stevens, particularly about the lingering psychological effects his WWII service had on him. Graham revealingly quotes Stevens as saying, “After seeing the {concentration} camps, I was an entirely different person.” While deeply researched and efficiently paced, Graham’s account does little to transcend the making-of genre of film books, and Graham’s strangely judgmental tone toward Giant’s stars is likely to leave readers feeling cold. Agent: Jim Hornfischer, Hornfischer Literary Management.

January 15, 2018
A noted authority on all things Texas, Graham (English/Univ. of Texas, Austin; State of Minds: Texas Culture and Its Discontents, 2011, etc.) turns his attention to film with this authoritative tale of "Big Texas Oil" and the epic movie Giant (1956).At the "top of his game" after A Place in the Sun (1951) and Shane (1953), George Stevens, the film's "often inscrutable" director, was anxious to film Edna Ferber's latest novel, Giant, about a Texas ranching empire and the clash between old ranch aristocracy and the new breed of oilmen. Hollywood was abuzz as the cast took shape. For the main part of Bick Benedict, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Robert Mitchum, Charlton Heston, and Errol Flynn, among others, were passed over for Rock Hudson, who was popular with teenagers. For the role of Bick's wife, Leslie, Stevens "had his heart set on Audrey Hepburn" and then Grace Kelly, but Elizabeth Taylor got the role: "Stevens didn't choose Taylor so much as she chose him." Alan Ladd, Marlon Brando, and Richard Burton were passed over for a young actor with "little-boy wounds...brash bad-boy behavior and exposed nerve endings," the "rebel," James Dean, as the "surly, resentful ranch hand Jett Rink." Dean died during production. Graham recounts in detail filming in the small, still-segregated-by-"custom" town of Marfa, whose citizens would soon learn that the film was a "powerful indictment of racial intolerance in Texas, and in the United States." Peppered throughout are lively profiles of the crew and actors, which also included Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker. Cultural critic Rebecca Solnit called Giant "a freak: a wildly successful mid-1950s Technicolor film about race, class, and gender from a radical perspective, with a charismatic, unsubjugated woman at the center." As Graham notes, the film "keeps finding new ways to speak to Americans across the decades." Stevens won an Academy Award; Hudson and Dean got best actor nominations.A readable, delightful work of film/cultural history for movie fans.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from February 15, 2018
Twenty-five movies were made from the writings of Edna Ferber, and the most famous is probably Giant, the 1956 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean, and directed by the great George Stevens. A story about greed, racism, and the clash between old and new money in Texas, Ferber's 1952 novel was almost tailor-made for Stevens' brand of character-based filmmaking, but the book, which ran to nearly 450 pages, presented some challenges in adapting it to the screen. Some characters would need to be tweaked (Stevens felt the female lead, Leslie Lynnton, was too strident in the novel); the chronology would have to be restructured (the novel began near the end of the story); and the pace needed to be accelerated. And Stevens needed to figure out how he was going to present Texas, a state that had had more than 60 movies made about it since 1950, in a fresh and exciting way. This splendid making-of book covers everything from casting to on-set clashes between stars (and between stars and director) to the staging of key scenes to choosing filming locations. The book also features in-depth biographies of the film's three leads, because you can't tell the story of this classic film without telling the stories of its stars, who were as tortured as their characters in their own ways. A sharp, insightful look at a legendary film.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)