John Wayne's movies, but this trope applies to the movies of other actors' Westerns as well, with Clint Eastwood, Randolph Scott, Burt Lancaster, and Glenn Ford all enjoying their fair share of heated fist fights over the years.

Ill tempers, alcohol, overbearing egos, and women are predictably among the many justifications that Western movies use to pit their characters against one another in no-holds-barred fist fights. It's the latter that primarily drives the conflict between Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston's characters in The Big Country, a 1958 Western from director William Wyler. Despite not being the main focus of the story or even its grand finale, the fisticuffs that erupt between Peck's James McKay and Heston's Steve Leech stand out as the film's most memorable moment.

The Big Country's Charlton Heston vs. Gregory Peck Fight Scene Is One Of The Western Genre's Best Fist Fights

Charlton Heston & Gregory Peck Fought For Almost Five Minutes In Their 1958 Western

In The Big Country, Peck's McKay is introduced as a fish-out-of-water man from the East looking to build a life in the Wild Wild West with his fiancée. While there, he stays at her father's ranch, where he earns the ire of Heston's Steve. Multiple disagreements and misunderstandings, combined with McKay's budding friendship with a woman Steve is interested in romantically, prompts Steve to challenge him to a fight. , but as tensions grow, he eventually gives in.

As someone who isn't a product of life in the Wild Wild West, McKay isn't interested in solving his problems with violence, even when others are concerned he's a coward

The gradual setup for the fight, and the slow erosion of McKay's reluctance to fight provide the perfect build-up for the showdown between them, making it easy to invest in their conflict. All the setup finally pays off when the two agree to fight in the middle of the night, to avoid an audience. The movie awards the long wait for the fight for an intense, climactic battle that lasts nearly five minutes - significantly more time than what's normally devoted to a fist fight in a 1950s Western.

The Big Country marked a rare ing role for Charlton Heston, who had already become a leading Hollywood actor by the time of the film's release in 1958. By that point, Heston had already starred in The Ten Commandments, which hit theaters in 1956.

Both characters being evenly matched allowed the fight to go on for as long as it did, going back and forth without either maintaining an edge for more than a few seconds through most of the fight. Having two of the decade's biggest male stars play these roles only enhanced the epic feel of the fight. Much of it was also filmed from far away, enabling The Big Country to use its beautiful Western scenery to build a great atmosphere for the battle.

The Big Country's Huge Fist Fight Helped Make Jim McKay One Of The Greatest Western Movie Heroes

It Didn't Matter Who Won

The five-minute fist fight was crucial to what made The Big Country work, and not just because of the intense action or the hard-to-top match-up of Gregory Peck vs. Charlton Heston. There's also the matter of what the fight meant to the story. Although Steve Leach would likely disagree, the fight was never about whom was the better man; what it was really about was Jim McKay's own self-esteem.

Had he accepted Steve's challenge and fought him earlier in The Big Country, little meaning would have been found in the fight, and it most likely would have been yet another Western movie brawl. Instead, McKay waited until no one was around, deciding that it wasn't important to prove to anyone else - Steve, his fiancée, or her father - that he wasn't a coward. McKay only fought Steve to prove this to himself, showcasing the nuances of his character and making him a truly unique and easy-to-root-for Western movie hero.