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

Review #644: 'This Gun for Hire' (1942)

While the 'film noir' genre was still in its earlier stages (back then they were generally referred to simply as melodramas), This Gun For Hire, an exciting, violent thriller from Frank Tuttle, probably shares more thematically with the Pre-Code gangster thrillers. There is no femme fatale to manipulate the film's anti-hero, nor is the lead a hard-bitten private dick or a dead-beat trying to make some cash. In fact, there isn't really a lead at all. It's arguably three inter-linking stories that intertwine and finally come to a head at the climax. Such is the curiosity of This Gun For Hire, one of the finest examples of the B-movie noirs.

Stoic hitman Philip Raven (Alan Ladd) guns down chemist Albert Baker (Frank Ferguson) and his innocent secretary, and takes what he came for - a chemical formula. His employer, the effeminate and cowardly Willard Gates (Laird Cregar), pays Raven in marked bills and then reports the bills stolen from his company. Nightclub entertainer Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake) is in town to audition for a nightclub spot owned by Gates, but is pulled aside by a senator hoping to gain information on Gates, who is under investigation for treason. Graham's boyfriend, LAPD detective Michael Crane (Robert Preston) is assigned to the case of Raven and the stolen money, but Raven has plans for revenge.

Although only fourth-billed, this made a star of Alan Ladd. His dead-eyed, cold-blooded gun for hire is what you take away from the film. Like Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947), his character displays such a shocking lack of ethics, quite alarming for its day. His brief moment of humanity comes when he chooses to spare an child who sees his face after a murder. Yet Ladd makes him undeniably compelling, even when he's smacking his girlfriend around for messing with his cat. Veronica Lake, an actress who has yet to completely win me over, does a decent job with a rather unexciting character, performing a couple of nice musical numbers (even though she is lip-synching) while performing magic.

Made during WWII, the overseas menace plays a definite part in the film. While by no means a political thriller, the chemical formula that Raven unwittingly steals is for poison gas, intended to be sold overseas to the highest bidder by Gates' mysterious, wheelchair-bound boss Alvin Brewster (Tully Marshall). America's need for corny patriotism damages the film in the end, used as a tool to allow its mean anti-hero some one-dimensional sympathy. It's my only real problem with the film, which without the ending, could have been up there with the greats of film noir. It's still a damn fine film, as hard-edged as you would want your noirs to be, with a truly enigmatic character (and actor) at its centre.


Directed by: Frank Tuttle
Starring: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie