La conquête de l'Ouest

I still remember seeing How the West Was Won in Cinerama when it made it into general release back in 1962. A motion picture theater equipped for Cinerama is the only way this one should be seen. The formatted VHS copy I watched tonight can't come close to doing it justice.

James R. Webb's original screenplay for the screen won an Oscar in 1962 and it involves an episodic account of the Presscott family and their contribution to settling the American west in the 19th century. We first meet the Presscotts, Karl Malden and Agnes Moorehead going west on the Erie Canal and later by flatboat on the Ohio River. They have two daughters, dreamy romantic Carroll Baker and feisty Debbie Reynolds. The girls meet and marry mountain man James Stewart and gambler Gregory Peck eventually and their adventures and those of their children are what make up the plot of How the West Was Won.

Three of Hollywood's top directors did parts of this film although the lion's share by all accounts was done by Henry Hathaway. John Ford did the Civil War sequence and George Marshall the sequence about the railroad.

The Civil War piece featured John Wayne and Harry Morgan in a moment of reflection at the battlefield of Shiloh. Morgan did a first rate job as Grant in his brief cameo and Wayne was playing Sherman for the second time in his career. He'd previously played Sherman in an unbilled cameo on his friend Ward Bond's Wagon Train series. I'm surprised Wayne never did Sherman in a biographical film, he would have been good casting.

If any of the stars could be said to be THE star of the film it would have to be Debbie Reynolds. She's in the film almost through out and in the last sequence where as a widow she goes to live with her nephew George Peppard and his family she's made up as a gray haired old woman and does very well with the aging. Debbie also gets to do a couple of musical numbers, A Home in the Meadow and Raise A Ruckus both blend in well in the story. Debbie's performance in How the West Was Won must have been the reason she was cast in The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Cinerama was rarely as effectively employed as in How the West Was Won. I well remember feeling like you were right on the flatboat that the Presscott family was on as they got caught in the Ohio River rapids. The Indian attack and the buffalo stampede were also well done. But the climax involving that running gun battle between peace officers George Peppard and Lee J. Cobb with outlaw Eli Wallach and his gang on a moving train even on a formatted VHS is beyond thrilling.

There is a sequence that was removed and it had to do with Peppard going to live with buffalo hunter Henry Fonda and marrying Hope Lange who was Fonda's daughter. She dies and Peppard leaves the mountains and then marries Carolyn Jones. Lange's part was completely left on the cutting room floor. Hopefully there will be a restored version of How the West Was Won, we'll see Hope Lange and more of Henry Fonda.

And it should be restored. All those Hollywood legends in one exciting film. They really don't make them like this any more.

Turbulent and mighty story about a family saga set against the background of wars and historical deeds ; covering several decades of Westward expansion in the nineteenth century--including the Gold Rush , the Civil War, , Pony Express , Telegraph , confrontation between cattlemen and homesteaders . And of course , the building of the railroads and career between Union Pacific and Central Pacific to arrive in Promontory Point ; among other epic events . As a family of Western settlers from the 1830s to the 1880s , beginning with their voyage on The Eerie Canal and going on to encompass a Civil War battle and other happenings .

The picture gets great action , expansive Western settings , shootouts , love stories , it is quite entertaining and there some some scenes still rate with the best of the West , including marvelous moments along the way . It efficiently describes an attractive panoramic view of the American Western focusing on the tribulations , trials and travels of three generations of a family . It's a big budget film with good actors , technicians, production values and pleasing results . Awesome as well as spectacular scenes such as an exciting white-water rafting sequence , a train robbery , a thundering buffalo stampede and Indian attacks . The Civil War is the shortest part and the weakest including a brief acting by John Wayne as General Sheridan and Harry Morgan as General Ulysses S Grant . Particularly supreme for its all-star cast list with some actors epitomising the spirit of the early West , at least as Hollywood saw it , including a Mountain man as James Stewart , a rogue card player , Gregory Peck , and Debbie Reynolds is notable here as a gorgeous dancer seeking fame and fortune . Not many of the players have a chance to register as a bearded Henry Fonda as a scout , Walter Brennan , Lee Van Cleef , Agnes Moorehead , Ken Curtis , Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln , Agnes Moorehead , Thelma Ritter , Mickey Shaughnessy , Russ Tamblyn and an interminable list ,

Impressive cinematography filmed in Cinerama, and photographed in splendorous Metrocolor , though it loses much of its breathtaking visual impact on TV but otherwise holds up pretty well . All four cinematographers were Oscar-winners such as William H. Daniels , Milton R. Krasner , Milton Krasner , Charles Lang Jr and Joseph LaShelle . Rousing musical score by the classical Alfred Newman , including an immortal leitmotif . The motion picture was spectacularly directed by three veteran filmmakers , they were enlisted by producer Bernard Smith to handle the multi-part frontier stories relating exciting exploits of an ordinary family . Of the five segments, Henry Hathaway directed "The Rivers", "The Plains" and "The Outlaws", John Ford directed "The Civil War" and George Marshall did "The Railroad". Some uncredited work was done by Richard Thorpe. The picture won Oscar 63 to Film editing , Sound , Story and Screenplay . Rating : Extraordinary film , essential and indispensable watching . It's a magnificent example of the kind of old-fashioned blockbuster just don't make anymore .

I have loved this movie since I saw its original theatrical release. The new (2009) DVD release finally does it justice. Digital stitching technology has made the 3-part Cinerama image almost literally seamless. In fact there is less distortion where the frames meet than there was in the original theatrical screening. And for the first time in a video release the full width of the Cinerama screen has been captured. About a third of each of the two side images was missing in previous video versions. This version is so wide that a wide-screen HDTV still requires black bars at top and bottom to fit the image on the screen.

Yes, there are moments we wish we could re-write, such as the narrator's reference to "primitive" people. This is balanced, however, by an unusually fair (for the time) treatment of the plight of the plains Indians. The movie holds up remarkably well, thanks to a well- written script and strong performances by a large A-list cast. With the exception of a scene in which Debbie Reynolds breaks into a song-and- dance number in a wagon-train encampment (the excuse being that her character is a singer) there is almost nothing that betrays the era when the film was made. Well, there is the fact that most of the cast members are long dead.

As a professional historian, I have to say that the almost complete absence of reference to specific historical events (except the battle of Shiloh) is part of the secret of the film's success. This is a movie that captures the myth of the American west, a myth that is still alive and powerful.

This movie was made for the biggest screen ever, prior to the Imax era. The absence of true close-up shots (a limitation of the Cinerama process) is more noticeable on a smaller screen. It deserves to be seen on the biggest wide-screen TV you can find. And it does deserve to be seen.

As a seven year old boy who adored history, I was brought by my mother to see this in Cinemascope on a huge screen. Anyone who has seen this can just imagine the impact.

There has always been a healthy dispute about what historical developments most influenced the outlook and behavior of Americans. Among the candidates are: i) the development of an entirely new world on distant shores - a world where the rules were there to be made as the Pilgrims/Puritans/Quakers and others determined, ii) the colonists' growing self-identity as Americans, the evolution of that separate identity, and these peoples' coordination and cooperation from 1607 to the Albany Union conference in 1759, the Stamp Act Congress in 1763 and the Second Continental Congress' decision to declare independence in 1776, iii) the workings of a multi-racial society due to the presence of aboriginal people and the importation of slaves, iv) the role of the frontier and settlement of a continually receding West, v) the enormity of immigration and their inter-action with the native-born from about the 1840s to the present, vi) the sheer size and diverse conditions of topography and climate, vii) the evolution of democracy over four centuries on a large scale, viii) the experience of modernization over the past century on a scale unknown to, and before, the rest of the world.

This movie in effect tells the fourth story - and tells it in a thrilling, colorful way -- from the 1840s when the frontier was still the Ohio Valley to about 1885 - not so long a time. (Contrast this with the 169 year colonial period).

The movie is stunning - beautifully cast - music you'll always remember - and many powerful and moving scenes. So many scenes live forever in my mind

• the return of the George Peppard character from the Civil War to his family's farmstead in Ohio,

-- the astonishing speech by the Richard Widmark character after the buffalo stampede has killed so many,

-- the wonderfully written emotional scenes whenever Debbie Reynolds was dealing with either Robert Preston's clumsy attempt at courtship ("why with hips like yours, having children would be as easy as rolling off a log") or her own love for the roguish Gregory Peck,

-- the George Peppard family (with the wonderful Carolyn Jones and Debbie Reynolds) singing Greensleaves as the movie nears its end,

-- and the astonishing scene of the West transformed into cloverleaf highways and overpasses after we've been watching a deserted West for several hours.

The pride in those who won the West is so evident throughout the movie - yet it's shown along with losses (the deep sadness of Henry Fonda's mountaineer at the continuing encroachment of civilization, the breach of the boundary set in an Indian treaty due to the railroad's need to set a straight course - and the resulting catastrophe).

Not too many years would pass before movie makers would be telling audiences that the settlement of the West was a triumph of vicious villains, charlatans, cynics and fast-buck artists in movies like McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Soldier Blue, Little Big Man, The Wild Bunch.

But I'm deeply grateful that I was old enough to see how the West was won in a movie like this.

"How the West Was Won" is one of only two dramatic feature films made using Cinerama's three-strip process. Watching the film on home video represents a compromise but Warner's latest edition offers as good a presentation as you're likely to see outside of a Cinerama theatre.

The film, which was based on a series of 'Life' magazine articles, traces the fortunes of the Prescott family as they take part in the westward expansion in 19th century America. The story unfolds over several decades and touches on the Gold Rush, the Civil War and other periods in American history. James R. Webb's screenplay, while more entertaining than historically exhaustive, won him an Oscar.

The cast is about as star-studded a bunch as you're likely to see anywhere. Where else can you see Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda & John Wayne all in same film? Not to mention Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark, Walter Brennan and others too numerous to mention. Needless to say, the acting is in good hands.

Technically, the film looks quite nice. The Oscar-nominated cinematography is breath-taking and Alfred Newman's score is top-notch. However, the filming process made for an overabundance of long shots and there are a few instances of rear projection that frankly look bad next to the rest of the picture. Also, while not a fault per se, there are geometric distortions inherent in displaying the curved picture on a flat screen.

Yet, despite its minor imperfections, "How the West Was Won" is an attractive and engaging epic Western. As a history lesson, it's somewhat superficial but the combination of fine acting and stunning visuals make it well worth your time. Just be sure to pick up the Special Edition or Blu-ray release.