If I had to recommend a classic Western to someone who’d never seen one before, I think I’d tell them to rent a copy of Billy Wilder’s The Big Country. From the opening sequence of a stage coach coming to town, Wilder framed every scene so his subject would look tiny and lost in the panoramic vistas of the American west, and he backed the film with a sountrack nearly as big as the west, too. Then he got arguably one of the most handsome leading men in Hollywood, Gregory Peck, to play “the dude,” a sailor from back east who’s come out west to marry the woman he loves, find a piece of land for his own and settle down to live the quiet life.

Of course it won’t be that easy. Oh, it all seems to start off just fine. The woman he loves, Pat Terrill, is waiting for him at the depot, throws her arms around him and they have a little lovey-dovey right there, but soon enough they have a run-in with The Hannassey Boys. They muss him up a little but it’s nothing an experienced sailor can’t handle and he’d just as soon let it go. The Hannassey’s, though, are the sworn enemies of the Terrills (well of course they are) so Peck’s future father-in-law’s got to ride over to their ranch with his ranch hands to shoot the place up and scare the women and children.

And the Terrills’ ranch boss, Charlton Heston, has had his eye on Pat for years and gives Gregory Peck the old stink eye right away, so of course they eventually have it out. It’s my favorite scene in any Western: the two guys who can’t stand each other at first eventually come to a mutual respect, but only after one of them calmly invites the other to step outside for a moment. They punch each other in the face for what seems like way longer than two guys would ever be able to punch each other in the face (Wilder made it look like hours) until, barely able to stand, they weakly shake hands and after that they’re friends forever.

It ends about the way you’d expect: “the dude’s” Yankee ways are kind of weird to these Western yokels, but he wins them over with his quiet ways, saves the girl and rides off across the prairie as the music swells. By the time it’s all over and you’ve soaked up just about every Western cliche Hollywood could trot out of the closet, you’ll know whether or not you like Westerns.