Photograph: Warner Bros./Allstar
“I think Rock Hudson worked best with a big background,” says film historian Steve Hayes in a biography of the Hollywood heart-throb, “in a big melodrama against a big landscape”. It doesn’t get much bigger than George Stevens’ three-and-a-half-hour epic Giant, starring the towering Hudson – who stood 6ft 5in at the height of his fame.
Adapted from Edna Ferber’s 1952 bestseller of the same name, Giant is a film of great conscience and scale, tracing multiple decades of a southern family reckoning with social and political tailwinds on their ranch. Often described as the national movie of Texas, Giant actually begins further east in the state of Maryland where Jordan “Bick” Benedict Jr (Hudson) has journeyed to buy a horse fit for his 595,000 acres of land. There he meets and quickly marries debutante Leslie Lynnton, played by a young Elizabeth Taylor.
Without second thought, the well-mannered, equestrian flower of the east – a clear case of typecasting for Taylor, who earlier won hearts as a teenage horse-whisperer in National Velvet – leaves it all behind for a life saddled at Bick’s side on his grand cattle ranch under the flaming Texan sun.
“Hot? It was about 120 degrees in the shade!” Taylor said of the storied summer shoot, which took a horrific turn when co-star Mercedes McCambridge was seriously scarred after make-up melted into her skin, burning her neck. Ironically, it’s McCambridge’s Luz, Bick Benedict’s spinster sister, that is most at home in these scorching conditions. Early in the film, Luz hosts an outdoor barbecue on a sweltering day to welcome her new sister-in-law to the community, which includes the avoidant ranch-hand Jett Rink – played by Giant’s true star James Dean. Luz’s friendly hazing sees Leslie faint before the entire town. As an easterner, her blood is “too thin” for Texas.
Yet from the moment of her arrival, Leslie’s presence brings about an important shift in the town. Unlike her husband, she shows basic respect for Mexican workers on the ranch – her progressive instincts no doubt a reflection of the political upbringing she received as an upper-class girl in the more progressive Maryland.
In the many years it spans, Giant endeavours to form a political picture of the south, from early debates between the newlyweds over the status of Texas as a “stolen state” to the penultimate scene where Bick brawls with a small-business owner refusing service to a Mexican family. The great accomplishment of the story is that it is one where a man of great stature admits that he was wrong.
The other primary thread in Giant is the making of another man – Jett – into an emperor. With his humble beginnings as a worker on Bick’s station, Jett comes into a great fortune when he discovers the small share of the ranch bequeathed to him by the late Luz sits above an oil well. His realisation is a moment of spectacular eruption: the well ejaculates suddenly, spraying his humble plot with glorious black grease. Jett is going to be a very wealthy man – the consequences of which become clear as the years tick by and characters age.
Early in the casting process Stevens made the unusual decision to hire actors in their 20s as his three leads, each of which would go on to play their characters in middle age during Giant’s second act. In his transformation, Hudson, who was 28 at the time, wore a 50-pound belt as padding around his waist. He and the 23-year-old Taylor wore substantial make-up to create the illusion – and yet it was Dean, as a greying oil tycoon, that transformed most convincingly. The actor refused the same cosmetics as his co-stars, arguing that “a man of 45 shows his age in thoughts and actions, not in wrinkles”. Dean’s performance – informed by his time in Texas with real cowboys – is a masterclass in swagger, down to Jett’s speech pattern and the way he wears his big hat.
As a reliquary of three of Hollywood’s brightest stars, Giant also imagines an alternate history where Hudson, Taylor and Dean were allowed to age alongside one another. Hudson died of Aids in the mid-80s, becoming one of the first beloved public figures associated with the disease. Fans across the world were shocked to find their hero reduced to a sick old man, sadly more sick than he was old. Needless to say, James Dean never aged beyond Giant. He famously crashed his race car in California shortly after filming was complete. Taylor was the only one who survived well into the 21st century in a life defined by both richesse and heartbreak, alternatingly assailed and adored by the public eye until her death, aged 79.
Witnessing the trio in Giant now feels like summoning ghosts. When 200 minutes have elapsed and the film is finally over, it’s almost a disappointment. Thanks to the cavalcade of great heroes that descended on Marfa, Texas, back in 1955, the night sky of the Lone Star state never looked so bright.
Giant is available to stream on HBO Max in Australia and available to rent in the UK and the US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
