Manny Farber's white elephant category might have been created for George Stevens' 1956 Lone Star epic. It's the kind of movie Hollywood used to pride itself on making: self-consciously "epic," grandiose, a history lesson rolled into a sweeping love story. And yes, it's full of moments of cringe-worthy obviousness, as when the firstborn son of cattle rancher Jordan "Bick" Benedict (Rock Hudson) bursts into tears when his father puts him on a horse, then plays happily with a toy stethoscope. (To no surprise at all, he grows up to be a doctor, though the fact that he also grows to be Dennis Hopper is a bit of a shock.) Though its condemnation of anti-Mexican racism is laudable, the movie's Mexican characters (most played by white actors covered with a thick coat of shoe polish) are almost embarrassingly noble; by contrast, Sidney Poitier was Sweet Sweetback.

But for all his grandiosity, Stevens excelled at small, patient details, and they're what make Giant worth watching, in addition to William Mellor's stunning vistas of a windswept Texas. (Giant has been through the same controversial de-graining process used on last year's Sunset Boulevard, and it looks a treat.) The way the camera stays inside the house, with the servants, as Bick lectures his new bride (Elizabeth Taylor) on the proper way to disregard their feelings, the creak of the screen door obliterating his words, says more, more effectively, than the trumped-up series of confrontations that close the movie. If ever there was a movie to make you doubt the Method, this is it. James Dean mumbles so badly he ought to come with subtitles; across the screen from Rock Hudson's solid elegance, he looks like he comes from another planet, one you don't really want to visit. (To be fair, though, he looks awful good in jeans.) And Elizabeth Taylor reminds you how much more she was than a pretty face.

Excerpt from Sam Adams' Philadelphia City Paper Review located HERE.