How the West Was Won (1962)

A family saga covering several decades of Westward expansion in the nineteenth century--including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of the railroads.

Directors:

John Ford, Henry Hathaway,

Writer:

James R. Webb

Stars:

Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, James Stewart

Won 3 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Carroll Baker	...	Eve Prescott
Lee J. Cobb	...	Marshal Lou Ramsey
Henry Fonda	...	Jethro Stuart
Carolyn Jones	...	Julie Rawlings
Karl Malden	...	Zebulon Prescott
Gregory Peck	...	Cleve Van Valen
George Peppard	...	Zeb Rawlings
Robert Preston	...	Roger Morgan
Debbie Reynolds	...	Lilith Prescott
James Stewart	...	Linus Rawlings
Eli Wallach	...	Charlie Gant
John Wayne	...	Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Richard Widmark	...	Mike King
Brigid Bazlen	...	Dora Hawkins
Walter Brennan	...	Col. Jeb Hawkins

Storyline

Sprawling epic which follows the Prescotts, an emigrant family through four generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830's to their settled home in the West a half a century later. On the way they encounter river pirates, and escape with the help of fur trapper Linus Rawlings, who subsequently marries one of their daughters, Eve. The parents are drowned on a foundering raft, and the other daughter Lilith becomes a riverboat singer and catches the eye of a genteel adventurer Cleve Van Valen. They cross the plains together in a wagon train and make and lose a fortune in California; meanwhile Linus has turned farmer and, comes the Civil War, joins the Union Army and is killed at the Battle of Shiloh. One of his sons Zeb also joins the army and stays after the war as a cavalry officer and is sent to Colorado to help guard the pioneering railroad against the Indians, whose land they are crossing. By this time Lilith is the elderly lady of the family, having survived long enough to see the ...

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Plot Keywords:

railroad | civil war | river | erie canal | army | 

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Taglines:

The epic journey of four generations of Americans who carved a country with their bare hands

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Genres:

Western

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Arapaho

Release Date:

20 February 1963 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Conquista do Oeste

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$12,150,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Cinerama Productions Corp.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

164 min

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm prints) Cinerama 7-Track (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.89 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although James Stewart's character was only supposed to be 28 in the movie, Stewart was actually nearly 54 at the time of filming.

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Goofs

Tire tracks in the scene where the Indians attack the wagon train.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: [as the camera pans over the Rocky Mountains] This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But, the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.

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Connections

Spin-off How the West Was Won (1977)

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Soundtracks

"On The Banks of Sacramento"
(1962) (uncredited)
Music by Alfred Newman
Lyrics by Ken Darby

User Reviews

More quantity than quality, but a truly all-star cast

Watching a letterboxed version of "How the West Was Won," I noticed the dividing lines on the screen, and it was clear that much of the picture was still missing even in this format. But neither hindered my enjoyment of this sprawling epic, even if James R. Webb's Oscar winning screenplay left something to be desired. Alfred Newman's music score is terrific, and so is that all-star cast. Unlike those disaster flicks of the 70s like "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" that claimed to be stuffed with stars but actually boasted "names" (usually familiar performers, primarily from TV, who rarely headlined a first class feature), "How the West Was Won" has the genuine article. John Wayne, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Carroll Baker, and Debbie Reynolds may mean little at the ticket windows of the 90s (and many of them are dead, anyway), but all were above the title stars who carried their own films at the box-office in the early 60s.

Three directors helmed this project but I'd be hard pressed to distinguish whether John Ford, George Marshall or Henry Hathaway were behind the camera during any particular episode if the opening credits didn't identify each segment and its director. I suppose "How the West Was Won" is more quantity than quality, but it's entertaining overall.