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

A lot of the actors were very intimidated by the 3 lens Cinerama camera and felt they had to elevate their performance to something approaching the way one performs on the theatrical stage as opposed to the more subtle style of acting normally required in front of a camera. This is why a lot of the actors in the film come across as being quite over-the-top.

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Goofs

When Roger Morgan is testing a new whip, he has it in his left hand and then it magically appears in his right hand.

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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

Edited from Raintree County (1957)

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Soundtracks

"Wait for the Hoedown"
(1962) (fragment)
Music Adapted by Robert Emmett Dolan (uncredited)
Lyrics adapted by Johnny Mercer
Sung by Debbie Reynolds

User Reviews

Bound for the promised land, indeed.

One of the last great epic movies to come out of MGM that was a roaring success, How the West Was Won still has enough quality about it to warrant high praise. The story that drives the film on was suggested by the series of the same name that featured in "Life" magazine 1959. Narrative is formed around one family, the Prescott's, who set out on a journey West in 1839. They and their offspring fill out five segments of film that are directed by three different men, "The Rivers", "The Plains" & "The Outlaws" is under the guidance of Henry Hathaway, and "The Civil War" by John Ford and "The Railroad" by George Marshall.

Filmed in the unique Cinerama format, which in a nutshell is three cameras filming at once to project a fully formed experience for the human eye, the production has an all star cast and four supreme cinematographers aiding the story. To name all the cast would take forever, but in the main all of the major parts were filled by stars who had already headlined a movie previously. The cinematographers are naturally key since such a sprawling story inevitably has sprawling vistas, they come up trumps with some truly special work: William H. Daniels, Milton Krasner, Charles Lang Jr. & Joseph LaShelle, four great names who help to make the film a poetic beauty.

As a whole it's undeniably far from flawless, complaints such as it running out of steam towards the end (the irony of it since a steam train features prominently), and the plot contrivances, are fair enough. However, when the film is good, it's real good: raft in the rapids, Cheyene attack, buffalo stampede and train robbery, each of them are good enough to be a highlight in separate movies. Even the songs are pleasant, particularly when they revolve around the effervescent Debbie Reynolds, while home format transfers are now finally up to a standard worthy of investment, time and cash wise.

Hard to dislike for a Western fan, and carrying enough about it to lure in the casual viewer, How the West Was Won really is a case of they don't make them like they used too. 8/10