Producers James Lee Barrett (who also wrote the script) and Andrew V. McLaglen (who also directed) each had worked with Wayne: Barrett wrote The Green Berets (1968) and The Undefeated (1969), while McLaglen, the son of actor Victor, had known Wayne since childhood and directed him in four features including Hellfighters (1968) and The Undefeated.

Brian Keith, then 49, plays a retiring U.S. Cavalry colonel about 65, roughly Wayne's real age at the time, in scenes that gently (and sometimes inelegantly) but directly spoof one of Wayne's most famous roles, in John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). Nearly the entirety of the John Ford and/or John Wayne stock company is present: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr., Paul Fix, Edward Faulkner, Bob Steele, plus a few others that had recently worked with Wayne, such as Merlin Olsen. It's not inconceivable that Something Big might have even been developed for director Ford, possibly with the knowledge that, in rapidly declining health, he'd never been able to actually direct it.

But none of this really matters as the picture is a nearly stillborn effort. The tone is wildly inconsistent, with fitful slapstick jumbled indiscriminately with moments of syrupy sentiment and tame genre parody. Likewise, the Burt Bacharach-Hal David title song (performed by Mark Lindsay), reflecting the obvious influence of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1971), seems out of place.

On the eve of his retirement, U.S. Cavalry Col. Morgan (Brian Keith) learns that wily bandit Joe Baker (Dean Martin) is up to "something big" (a term repeatedly and greatly overused in the dialogue), one last big score before the easygoing thief likewise retires.

Baker, planning to rob a veritable fortress held by well-armed Mexican banditos just across the borders, strikes a bargain with two-bit thief Johnny Cobb (Albert Salmi), who'll exchange a Gatling gun for something unusual: a cultured woman.

After a series of stagecoach hold-ups, Baker finally kidnaps Mary Ann (Goldfinger's Honor Blackman), unaware that she's the colonel's long-separated wife, come to collect him in his retirement. Meanwhile, Baker's own fiancée, fiery Scotswoman, Dover (Carol White), has also gone west to collect him.

Neither Dean Martin nor Brian Keith was exactly a box-office powerhouse at the time. Martin's 1965-74 variety show was popular, but his starring films had steadily declined, from the increasingly terrible Matt Helm spy spoofs to lackluster Westerns like 5 Card Stud (1968). He fared much better in supporting roles: The Sons of Katie Elder (with Wayne, 1965), Bandolero! (with Jimmy Stewart, 1968), and the film he made just before this, Airport (1970), a huge hit. Martin was good in all of those, but seemed to give a lot less in his own vehicles, as he does here. Gruff Brian Keith, a household name from the sentimental sitcom Family Affair (1966-71), was a difficult actor to cast, and tended to over- or underplay his movie roles, though occasionally could be excellent. Oddly, he gave one of his best performances in what was maybe his worst movie, as a quietly amused Russian-speaking scientist in the disaster film Meteor (1979). (Despite his Irish-Catholic background, Keith somehow spoke fluent Russian.)

Of more interest to Western genre fans are the substantial supporting parts given to Ben Johnson (as a Cavalry-hired tracker), Harry Carey, Jr. (as a one-legged pal of Martin's), and B-Western great Bob Steele as a stagecoach driver. The movie isn't very good but they're all fun to watch.

About the only thing memorable about Something Big are Joyce Van Patten and Judi Meredith as a sex-starved sisters, widowed some years before by their miner husbands. Their determination to bed down with any man lucky or unlucky enough to cross their path is rather refreshing and original for a Western comedy. The film should have offered more scenes like this.

Video & Audio

Presented in its original 1.85:1 widescreen Something Big, licensed from CBS (inheritors of the National General library) looks fine, with a reasonably sharp image, decent color, etc. The 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio (mono) is adequate and the disc is Region A encoded. No Extra Features.

Parting Thoughts

Not terrible and nearly likeable at times, Something Big itself sure seemed to have had bigger ambitions at one point, but then all but gave up. Rent It.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian largely absent from reviewing these days while he restores a 200-year-old Japanese farmhouse.