Zeus

The Big Sky (1952)

• Director
  • Howard Hawks
• Writers
  • Dudley Nichols(screenplay)
  • A.B. Guthrie Jr.(novel "The Big Sky")
  • Ray Buffum(adaptation)
• Stars
  • Kirk Douglas
  • Dewey Martin
  • Elizabeth Threatt

  The Big Sky is based on a popular novel by A.B. Guthrie. Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin play a pair of Kentucky frontiersmen who embark upon the first keelboat trip up the Missouri River way back in 1830. Joining Douglas and Martin are Martin's grizzled old uncle Arthur Hunnicutt and garrulous Frenchman Steven Geray. Running afoul of various Indian tribes, Douglas nonetheless romances Sioux princess Elizabeth Threatt (their off-screen relationship was on the kinky side, as an embarrassed Douglas reveals in his autobiography). Director Howard Hawks leavens the Boys' Own Adventure atmosphere of the film with a few isolated comic sequences, including a sidesplitting scene in which Douglas' gangrenous finger is cut off. Produced for RKO Radio by Hawks' own Winchester Pictures,