This legendary 1956 film based on Edna Ferber’s best-selling family saga received ten Academy Award nominations and earned director George Stevens an Oscar. Rock Hudson plays Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher who wins the heart of Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor), a Virginia aristocrat. They settle down on Reata, his ancestral 595,000 acre spread. Cinematographer William C. Mellor makes the most of the sweeping Texas vistas and the endless roundelay of parties and holiday celebrations of the rich and the powerful. The central rivalry in the drama is between Benedict and Jett Rink (James Dean in his final film portrait), a wrangler who hits it big as an oil tycoon.

In one of the best scenes in the film, Leslie hears all of her husband’s cronies boasting of their tax exemptions and says that her father’s service of others never earned him any entitlements. In the moral apex of the drama, she pays tribute to her husband for standing up for some Mexicans who are treated shabbily in a hamburger joint by the bigoted owner.

More than anything else, Giant offers a portrait of a marriage that evolves over time into something more than it was at the outset. The film also shows how the rich are able to turn things their way and, in that regard, the story is as contemporary as all the tax cuts and corporate welfare being given to the plutocracy in America right now. Also featured are Dennis Hopper, Rod Taylor, Carrol Baker, Mercedes McCambridge, Sal Mineo, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Alexander Scourby, Earl Holliman and Judith Evelyn, and Charles Watts.


This commemorative all-new special edition two-disc DVD includes nearly three hours of documentaries and commentary on the film. There are audio pieces by George Stevens, Jr., the son of the director, film critic Stephen Farber, and co-screenwriter Ivan Moffat, as well as documentaries in which filmmakers who knew him discuss director George Stevens and the making of the movie. Other highlights include vintage promos, trailers, and footage from premieres, and plenty of production trivia.