How the West Was Won |  | Directors: George Marshall, Henry Hathaway, John Ford, Richard Thorpe
Actors: James Stewart, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Carroll Baker
Studio: MGM (Warner)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
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Rating:  87 reviews
Sales Rank: 62077
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: G (General Audience)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0792839072
UPC: 027616629227
EAN: 9780792839071
ASIN: 0792839072
Theatrical Release Date: February 20, 1963
Release Date: July 28, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
The first feature film to be photographed and projected in the panoramic three-camera Cinerama process, this epic Western is almost as expansive as the West itself, chronicling a pioneering family's triumphs and tragedies in numerous episodes spanning three generations and a half century of westward movement. Divided into five segments directed by veteran Hollywood filmmakers Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, and the legendary John Ford (and including uncredited sequences directed by Richard Thorpe), the film was one of the most ambitious ever made by the venerable MGM studio. Its stellar cast reads like a virtual who's who of Hollywood's biggest stars. Debbie Reynolds plays a sturdy survivor of many pioneering dangers, and the eventual widow of a gambler (Gregory Peck), who is later reunited with her nephew (George Peppard), a Civil War veteran and cavalryman who heads for San Francisco as the transcontinental railroad is being built. Many more characters and stories are woven throughout this epic film, which is dramatically uneven but totally engrossing with its stunning vistas and countless outdoor locations in Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Monument Valley in Arizona, California, Colorado, and elsewhere. --Jeff Shannon
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 87
 Epic & groundbreaking February 8, 2010
magellan (Santa Clara, CA)
Please note that I saw this on HBO so I can't comment on the quality of the video transfer or its features.
This is an exciting and visually stunning move in many ways. It broke new ground in video: the Cinerama process involved three cameras, producing an absurdly wide-screen image. I once read that even in the early 60s a wide-screen multi-element movie camera lens could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars--that was more than an average house in the U.S. back then. So one can only wonder what this process cost for this movie when all was said and done.
Everything about the movie is bigger than life--the amazingly stellar cast, the directorial talent (of which several were involved), the huge budget, and even as I said, the camera technology. And at three hours, it's truly a movie as big and sweeping as the country it tries to depict. As far as westerns go, there may never have been another to match the scale and scope of HTWWW, although Cimarron does come to mind, but even Cimarron isn't as ambitious as HTWWW, or as good a movie, in my humble opinion.
But therein lies one of the problems with such a big, ambitious movie. Although a great movie in many ways, trying to maintain continuity during it's 50-year timeline and with such a diverse cast of characters and subplots proved to be a monumental, and not entirely successful, task. But the script was first-rate, the entire cast was superb, the scenes are memorable and dramatic, and the action sequences are some of the best ever done.
I'll just mention one of these. Especially memorable was the gun fight on the train near the end of the movie between George Peppard and Lee J. Cobb, and Eli Wallach and his gang, where the train is literally falling apart as it speeds down the track, finally derailing. I'm no expert on movie stunts, but this looked very risky to do and even dangerous. And it's one of the most spectacular action sequences in any movie. Not all of the movie has such heart-stopping action--which is probably a good thing. :-)
One final note on the camera optics, because wide-screen lenses produce serious optical distortions, you can see that edges and straight lines, if they're long enough, are often markedly curved in the movie, especially in the final scenes where the two ends of the Golden Gate Bridge seem to curve away at almost right angles from each other. :-)
Finally, the movie has a rousing sound track that melds perfectly with the action on screen. Overall, a truly historic and groundbreaking movie that's still worth your time.
Debbie Reynolds Journeys to California December 12, 2009
James McDonald (Lancaster, California)
The last Grand Epic Movie from MGM. Original Running Time: 2 hours, 42 min.
Ever seen a film on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in the last 30 minutes and wonder what film it is? I saw Debbie Reynolds come off a train and she played an older lady. So I had to see the whole movie and I saw it on DVD.
Right away you will notice the film has three creases in it. Look at it long enough and it looks like a folded postcard.
The lines mean the film was so big that it fit a three-screen CinemaScope theatre.
Turner Classic Movies and this DVD release present this film in Wide-Screen format so all three-screens can be seen.
If you only saw it in its Full-Screen version, it would just be the middle screen you would see with the edges of the left and right screen.
The start of the film might remind you of the former Disneyland Circle-Vision "Scenes of America" attraction.
This is a good 'ole American Western Epic filmed in South Dakota. You might spot the Devil's Tower.
The film starts with Mountain Man, Linus Rawlings (Jimmy Stewart) trying to make it to Pittsburgh. Along the way in a canoe, he comes across he Prescott family (Karl Malden, Agnes Moorehead, Debbie Reynolds, Carroll Baker) and they quickly like each other. Linus hasn't been with a good women in a long time. She got a kiss out of him, but the next day he left. Destiny will bring them together again.
After dealing with some bad guys at a trading outpost, he was pushed into a pit and escaped back into the water now floating on a log. He caught up with the Prescott family and helped them be rid of the bad guys at the outpost. Linus decides he must go his way and godspeed to Eve.
After the Prescott family goes through the terrible river rapids on their raft, Linus received word of the family and finds them downstream. He continuously thought of Eve. He asks her to go to Pittsburgh with him, but now she believes God put her family there and that is where the farm should be. Will she go with him?
Suddenly the other daughter, Lily, has her prayers answered. She does see a paddle steamboat. We assume she did make it to the boat as the film takes us on the long journey of her life.
Also in the cast: Gregory Peck, Robert Preston, Thelma Ritter, Walter Brennan, Andy Devine, George Peppard, Henry Morgan, John Wayne, Russ Tamblyn, Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Eli Wallach, Lee J. Cobb, Carolyn Jones, Stanley Livingston. Lee van Cleef as a River Pirate, Harry Dean Stanton and Jack Lambert as "Gant Henchman". Jay C. Flippen as "Huggins", Raymond Massey as "Abe Lincoln".
DVD includes a 15 minute Behind The Scenes.
 fascinating , "trippy" , inexpensive discovery November 7, 2009
B. Lafave (lakeland , fl)
this film (not the JOHN WAYNE collection pictured near it) was released the year of my birth . it's the same film as the WAYNE one . to characterize it as a WAYNE feature is extremely misleading . he's bairly in it . i'm not going to address the transfer as i'm not that sort of "PHILE" to whom these things are of the least import . hell . when i was a youth we were perhaps begining to examine color as a television option . there were no remotes or cable . nothing was letterboxed but our U.S. MAIL. i read a swell write up about the film on an online film site in which the author praised the film (i paid three dollars new at a discount store) as "trippy" . that's a pretty good and accurate description . the film required three fine directors including JOHN FORD to make . to me , the most interesting thing about the film (besides the involving and compelling story it tells) is the median age of the (allegedly) desirable male leads . with the exception of a very youthful GEORGE PEPPARD , these men are all in their 50s . simultainiously , all the certainly desirable women are in their late 20s to early 30s . perhaps that was how the west was won ? perhaps that's how the men who made the film would like to envision it ? worth a look and some reading for the unusual technique used to make this and less than twenty other films . recommended .
Historic Panorama October 16, 2008
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. (Tampa, Florida)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
These days, American history has been minimized in schools, under the guise of "cultural diversity." This film may not fully correct this, but it does provide an idea of what the United States' cultural roots have been.
The story begins tracing the story of a family migrating from the eastern states to the frontier of the time, and of a mountain man, a trapper who interacted with western American Indians well beyond the explored lands. The family meets tragedy, with one of the daughters and the mountain man falling in love, and the other daughter -- a free spirit of the time -- living a wilder life as a singer and entertainer.
From the post-revolutionary world through the Civil War and beyond, the stories of the two branches of the family are shown, covering the sweep of historic events until the close of the 19th Century, not counting a rapid epilog.
The film was sjot in Cinerama, using the original three-camera process, so thwere is a discernable jiggle at the two joins between the photos, and naturally, the scope of the original is literally minimized on the average video screen. Yet this is counterbalamced by really striking scenes of the untamed wiorld of the pioneers.
The film is also more honest than many is the dealings between the settlers and the American Indians, showing cases of how treaties were broken, and the natural reaction for such actions.
The film has formidible star power, with many of the top stars from the time it was shot present in significant roles.
Hardly a perfect film, but it does provide some perspective of how the nation developed.
CORRECTION ON THIS FILM'S HISTORY September 10, 2008
Robert Blenheim (Daytona Beach, Florida)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As an admirer of the original film since seeing it in the original three-screen Cinerama process when I was a kid, I hate to inform you all that, although released in Europe first, it was NOT the first feature film in the three-screen Cinerama process (although it was the last).
George Pal's "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" was the first -- released in 1962 in the three-screen process. I still have the original road-show souvenir book and it states it clearly. "Bros. Grimm" was the first, "How the West was Won" was the second -- then, because of so much revenue being generated from its "ordinary theatrical release" the company was forced to make a compromise: A single-lens, single-curved screen process for future Cinerama productions. This was initiated with Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and followed by such films as Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and John Sturges' "The Hallelujah Trail". I just needed to get the facts straight here.
Incidentaly, this three-lens, three-screen process of "Bros. Grimm" and "How the West Was Won" is why the DVD release has unavoidably two lines running down the middle, and the strange effect of, say, a wagon rolling horizontally seeming to be constantly riding in a warped circle. This is because of the three screens being flattened back onto a straight surface.
One more thing: Alfred Newman's great score for "How the West Was Won" is truly one of the greatest western film scores in history (even quoted in other films as a quintessential western score -- check out the Western fantasy sequence in "Romancing the Stone") and to hear it in true 5.1 sound is worth the price alone!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 87
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