Wizard-8 This particular western must have somewhat bewildered the few people who initially saw it in theaters when it was released in 1971. While the previous few years had had the western genre shook up by the spaghetti westerns from Italy and violent American westerns like "The Wild Bunch", this particular western seems to come from a earlier time. It's an old fashioned kind of western. Nothing really wrong with that, as long as the execution is done well. But sadly, the movie is a big letdown. The main reason why it fails is that most of the movie is really boring. The little story there is moves at a snail's pace, with abundant padding throughout. Things could have still been saved with an extra ingredient like action or comedy, but the movie is a letdown in those areas as well. There is very little action up to the violent climax, and the violence in the climax is not worth the wait. As for the comedy, it is pretty lame, with the only laugh being an unintentional one (a character has the name "Emilio Estevez".) Small wonder that headline star Dean Martin seems alternately bored or somewhat bewildered with what is going on around him. By the way, he's also offscreen for long periods of time, which he was probably thankful for.

bkoganbing I think the only thing that prevents Something Big from being a classic comic western is the awful let down at the end when Dean Martin decides to really do that Something Big he came west from Pennsylvania to do. The shootout at the end if anything is an anti-climax to the wild goings-on that preceded it throughout the movie.Dean Martin after coming west to seek fame and fortune or at least enough to marry Carol White and support her is the leader of a group of outlaws with Carol's brother Don Knight as his number two. He wants to really make a score, do Something Big before returning to the east and another outlaw Albert Salmi has an interesting proposition for him.Salmi's been without a woman for way too long now and his sidekick Robert Donner is not one to bring out the love that dare not speak its name. There just ain't too many folks of the female persuasion out in the territory. So if Martin will get him a woman, Salmi can lay his hands on a Gatling Gun to be used in whatever that Something Big scheme will be.So what does Dino do? He holds up a few stagecoaches and then gets what he considers a proper woman, Honor Blackman famous as Pussy Galore of James Bond fame. The problem there is Dino didn't check her hand for a wedding ring, she's the wife of Brian Keith the commander of the local army post.Ironically enough this silliness actually works as Brian Keith and chief scout Ben Johnson go searching the territory for Martin and Blackman. The various misadventures of the players goes for most of the film and when Martin does put his big scheme into operation in the last 20 minutes or so of the film, it is so anti-climatic, it's actually a let down.Something Big is a very funny film for some reason not often shown. All the players do well, but my absolute favorites are Joyce Van Patten, and Judi Meredith the Standish sisters. A pair of frontier widows who really know how to be hospitable to a passing stranger, especially if the stranger is in pants.Hopefully TCM will get this film and run it and soon.

whynotwriteme Whatever happened to light-hearted western movies like 'Something Big'? Now, whenever Hollywood manages to let a western slip out among the 'Die Hard' ripoffs and teen romances, they are always ponderous, grim, indictments of the murderous whiteman's persecution of indians or sombre stories about tormented gunslingers. By 90's movie standards, nobody in the Wild West seems to have ever cracked a smile. 'Something Big' is a movie from the good old days of politically incorrect westerns. Dean Martin plays a likeable outlaw with plans for something big to finish his career in the west. Plans involving a Gatling gun, a fortune in gold, a kidnapped wife of a cavalry officer, Apaches and Mexican bandidos galore. The movie has a cheerful adventurous mood to it, with all kinds of touches of atmosphere like Dean Martin's pet dog Scruffy, the skeleton propped up in the saloon, and the John Ford-like dialogue between Brian Keith as the cavalry officer and Ben Johnson as his scout. 'Something Big' has almost the same mood as a pirate movie, only set in the west. An exciting story with likeable scoundrels after a fabulous treasure. I remember seeing this on TV as a little kid and wishing my life could be like that of Dean Martin's character in this movie. If you love westerns and do not feel like watching a big important 'message' movie like Dances With Wolves or a revisionist gunfighter story like Unforgiven, you should try to find this film on TV. It is a shame that 'Something Big' never made it to video. Western fans need more fun, guilt-free entertainment. I disagree COMPLETELY with Leonard Maltin's review, and I am sure all other real western fans will too.

Karen-47 I also remember seeing this in the theatre. Dean Martin was pretty cool in this movie, but I remember the best part of the movie was the theme song (by Mark Lindsay), and I had to go out of my way to order a copy of the 45.