So Big

1953
Approved
1h 41m

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

851

YOUR RATING

In the late 1890s, a young widowed woman becomes a successful farmer and can send her son, nicknamed 'So Big', to college. After graduating, he finds a job as an architect, but forgoes his dream in favor of an immediate financial success.

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Drama Romance Western

In the late 1890s, a young widow becomes a successful farmer and can send her son, nicknamed 'So Big', to college. After graduating, he finds a job as an architect, but forgoes his dream in ... Read allIn the late 1890s, a young widow becomes a successful farmer and can send her son, nicknamed 'So Big', to college. After graduating, he finds a job as an architect, but forgoes his dream in favor of an immediate financial success.In the late 1890s, a young widow becomes a successful farmer and can send her son, nicknamed 'So Big', to college. After graduating, he finds a job as an architect, but forgoes his dream in favor of an immediate financial success.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

851

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination

Trivia
Tommy Rettig and Jon Provost both portrayed the young Dirk, aged 8 and 2 respectively. They also played Lassie's young master in Lassie (1954), Rettig from 1954 to 1957 and Provost from 1957 to 1964.

Goofs
The math problems on Salina's chalkboard would be tricky even for modern high school students, much less unschooled children in a Dutch farming community in the 1890s.

Quotes
Dallas O'Mara: What I don't have, Dirk, I don't need.

Connections
Referenced in They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1968)

User reviews12

Review

Featured review

7/10

Ode To The Agricultural Life

In the third and final big screen adaption of Edna Ferber's novel, Jane Wyman essays the role of the schoolteacher who moves into a community of Dutch immigrant farmers in the Midwest and changes her life forever as she goes from rich débutante to a farmer's wife and widow. Wyman takes pride in her work and her child whom she nicknames So Big.

Jane's family fortune was lost when her parents died and she was forced by circumstance to become a schoolteacher. She's assigned to the Midwest town of New Holland and she works hard to teach the Dutch immigrant children. She also meets and weds sturdy farmer Sterling Hayden who leaves her a widow with a child and a farm to manage.

She meets the challenge and in doing so finds what Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh called 'the nobility of toil' in her work. So Big is Edna Ferber's ode to the agricultural life, there is indeed something special in seeing the seeds you plant grow into something. It's a lesson she imparts to her son who when he's full grown is played by Steve Forest. Forest in fact becomes an architect, but his mom literally and figuratively drags him back down to earth every so often.

Wyman's best scenes are with the various children who play her son Dirk, aka So Big at various stages of life. The film probably deserved to run a bit longer because I don't think all of Edna Ferber's thoughts were translated to the screen. Still So Big holds up well as fine family entertainment, as good as it was when released in 1953.