Reception
Ives won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for the musical score by Jerome Moross.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower liked the movie very much and showed it on four successive evenings in the White House during his second administration.
A theme from Moross' score of The Big Country (as performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra) was sampled by MC Tunes versus 808 State in a top 10 UK chart hit, The Only Rhyme That Bites, in 1990. A decade later, girl-group Atomic Kitten used the same sample on their Top 20 hit I Want Your Love in 2000. It is also quoted heavily in Yes' 1970 cover of Richie Havens' song "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed".
In a poll of 500 films held by Empire Magazine, it was voted 187th Greatest Movie of all time.
American Film Institute Lists
- AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores — Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers — Nominated
- AFI's 10 Top 10 — Nominated Western Film
Read more about this topic: The Big Country
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)