Big Jake is a 1971 American Technicolor Western film starring John Wayne, Richard Boone and Maureen O'Hara.

The supporting cast features Patrick Wayne, Christopher Mitchum, Glenn Corbett, Jim Davis, John Agar, Harry Carey Jr. and Hank Worden.

Jeff kills the Devries brothers but is badly wounded; his son, Jacob "Little Jake," is kidnapped before the gang flees to Mexico, leaving behind a ransom note for $1 million.

Martha places the ransom in a strongbox, and delegates from both the United States Army and the Texas Rangers offer to take the box for her.

Martha decides instead to send for her estranged husband Jacob "Big Jake" McCandles, who is generally thought to be dead but is really wandering the west as a gunfighter.

Jake disapproves and sets off with the box, a mule, packhorses, and his elderly Apache friend Sam Sharpnose, preferring to do things the old-fashioned way.

[7] Howard Thompson of The New York Times encouraged theatergoers to "stick it out" until the exciting climax, to which the rest of the film was a "long prelude" that "simply jogs along fairly tediously on the rescue trail, with the star being his laconic self, plus conventional spurts of violence, likewise the saddle humor.

"[10] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote that the film had "[a]n above-average script, plus excellent direction by vet George Marshall and superior photography by William Clothire on Mexican locations," but was "gratuitously violent far beyond the legitimate requirements of the action plot.

"[12] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a rather insufferable sort of 'typical' Wayne vehicle" with "an undercurrent of vindictiveness that spoils the ostensible humor.

It's obvious that young actors are needed to appeal to younger viewers and to perform the kinds of physical action that require youth and dexterity and that Wayne is just too visibly massive and slow to accomplish these days—but they're treated almost exclusively as stooges ...