Review #992: 'How the West Was Won' (1962)

Very much like IMAX's grandiose stand against the emergence of internet streaming, Blu-Ray and the 'Golden Age of Television', the 1950's saw studios battling against the arrival of a television in every home, and used the likes of 3D and 'Spook Show Spectaculars' to draw the public in. Another short-lived fad was Cinerama, a process of shooting with three synchronised cameras and creating an ultra widescreen effect in the process. It was a headache for film-makers, notably John Ford, and special cinemas had to be built to house the format that required three projectors and a deeply curved screen.

Also like IMAX, Cinerama was intended mainly for documentaries, but its immediate success meant that it wouldn't be too long before studios started to turn to features. The first was The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 1962, and How the West Was Won came later the same year. The latter is the most ambitious, telling a story stretching 50 years across three generations and boasting a cast of '24 great stars' (as the poster informs us), taking us through the major events of America's expansion further west and employing four first-rate directors - John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall and the uncredited Richard Thorpe - to bring it to life.

Whilst the ambition can only be admired, How the West Was Won is a mixed bag. In part a rough-and-tumble, old-fashioned western that offers differing perspectives of America's venture out west, as Henry Fonda's grizzled buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart laments the bloody consequences of the railroad's arrival under the command of Richard Widmark's ruthless and treaty-dismissing overseer, the film also cannot resist the lure of grand song-and-dance numbers, with Debbie Reynolds husky voice and knee-slapping becoming tiresome very quickly. It also keeps the audience at a huge distance, both emotionally and literally. With so much picture being captured, actors are routinely squeezed into the centre of the frame with their facial expressions too far away to see.

Broken up into 5 segments - The Rivers, The Plains, The Civil War, The Railroad and The Outlaws - we follow the Prescott family, led at first by Zebulon (Karl Malden), as they head for the frontier and encounter mountain man Linus Rawlings (a woefully miscast James Stewart). Rawlings falls for eldest daughter Eve (Carroll Baker), and the family spread out from there. Hathaway directs three of the five, with the best being the Outlaws section, which pits George Peppard's Zeb Rawlings. a marshal, against bandit Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach), and delivers a set-piece on top of moving train which is as technically impressive as anything made today (a stunt-man almost died during the filming).

Ford's Civil War segment is the slightest but offers an interesting insight into the war. In one fantastic scene, General Ulysses S. Grant (Harry Morgan) drunkly ponders his effectiveness to General William Sherman (John Wayne) as the young Zeb Rawlings listens, demonstrating Ford's lack of fear in showing a brittler side to a man considered an unshakeable American hero. But Ford and the film in general never really commits to the themes it hints at, and this is ultimately what makes How the West Was Won such a frustrating experience. As the camera sails across modern America before the closing credits, I felt slightly appalled at what had been done to this once-beautiful country but couldn't really figure out if this was how the film intended I feel. As a visual experience, it is truly like no other, but it remains oddly hollow emotionally and thematically.


Directed by: John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall
Starring: Carroll Baker, Debbie Reynolds, George Peppard, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Henry Fonda, Robert Preston, Lee J. Cobb
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie