So Big

This is the fourth go-around for Edna Ferber's sprawling novel. The first was a silent, then there was a short, then the 1932 Stanwyck version, and finally this one, which was the best of the lot. It encompasses 25 years in Wyman's life and it is a tribute to the makeup crew that they were able to pull it off. Wyman is from a well-to-do family and, when she is suddenly poor, she takes a job in a Dutch community in Illinois as a teacher, meets and marries Hayden and helps him with the arduous farm labors, tasks that she was hardly raised to do. They have a son, Rettig (who would go on to become famous as Lassie's best pal), who eventually grows up to be Forrest. Mea...