George Stevens’ Western drama known as Giant is a 1956 three-hour plus epic film, along the lines of Gone with the Wind, Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia among others. The movie is based on Edna Ferber’s novel under the same name and features a wealth of great legendary, iconic actors including Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Dennis Hopper, Mercedes McCambridge, Rod Taylor, Earl Holliman, and Sal Mineo.
Jordan “Bick” Benedict, Jr. (screen legend Rock Hudson, All That Heaven Allows, Come September, Send Me No Flowers) a Texas rancher pays a visit to a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. While there he meets and falls in love with the owner’s daughter Leslie (the iconic Elizabeth Taylor, Suddenly, Last Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Big Hangover), they are married immediately and return to his ranch. Leslie must learn to adjust to her new role as his wife, and she’s not happy about being a subservient type, as she is a free spirited, highly opinionated, outspoken lady who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, but they make it work. The story takes place over the course of twenty years where they have children that are all grown up by the end of the film and have a fierce rivalry with Texas ranch hand Jett Rink (legendary actor James Dean, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause) who becomes a rich man after an oil strike. Rink is having a secret relationship with Bick’s daughter Luz Benedict II (Carroll Baker, The Big Country, How the West Was Won, Baby Doll) adding to the tension and Jordan “Jordy” Benedict III (Dennis Hopper, Night Tide, Queen of Blood, Blue Velvet) marries a Mexican woman, Juana Villalobos Benedict (Elsa Cardenas, The Wild Bunch, The Brave One), which leads to some rather racist moments where people are unwilling to serve her at parties or restaurants because of her race.
I thought Giant was an excellent picture with a superb story and a fantastic top-notch cast. In my opinion, Giant makes for a great weekend matinee picture! I thought that this was Rock Hudson’s best role that I’ve seen him in.The movie covers themes from race to bigotry, feminism, and personal pride, which are still relevant today. This is the film that is said to have inspired the Dallas television series. George Stevens direction for this picture earned him an Oscar.
Giant receives a new 4K UHD release from the original camera negatives on a triple-layered 100GB disc. The 2160p transfer looks good overall. The video quality is clean and polished with great details to scenery, clothing, and background visuals. Colors often do look, deep and vibrant but I felt some parts of the film looked a bit on the soft side, despite the HDR10 color grading. Some moments in the film have a cream color or have a yellowish hue to it but it doesn’t distract too terribly much. Black levels are deep and shows a lot of depth in darker scenes with excellent shadow detail. Skin tones look accurate. Even with a few minor issues, and the film may never look that terrific on home video, this UHD release is still the best video presentation out there for this movie!
For the audio, Giant’s UHD release has a DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio soundtrack that is clear, fluid, and crisp throughout. Dialogue, action sounds and the wonderful score from Dimitri Tiomkin all sound perfectly balanced without any hissing or drop-off issues. English subtitles are available.
There isn’t much in the way of bonus materials outside the commentary track by filmmaker George Stevens Jr., film critic Stephen Farber, and screenwriter Ivan Moffat, which is from the previous Blu-ray releases.
Fans of Giant should not hesitate to pick this UHD up as it is relatively inexpensive to purchase and provides the most satisfactory audio/video quality to date! Recommended!
Giant
Director- George Stevens
Cast- Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Warner Brothers
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –8/1/22