How the West Was Won (1962)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Directors:

John Ford
Henry Hathaway

Writer:

James R. Webb (written by) (suggested by the series "How the West Was Won" in LIFE magazine)

Release Date:

20 February 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Romance | Western

Tagline:

A FABULOUS ROMANTIC ADVENTURE

Plot:

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.

Plot Keywords:

Railroad | Civil War | Erie Canal | Gold Rush | Wagon Train

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

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

Runtime:

162 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Arapaho

Color:

Color (Technicolor) (credited as Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.89 : 1

Sound Mix:

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

Certification:

Canada:G | Portugal:M/12 | USA:Approved (certificate #20143) | USA:G (re-rating) (1970) | West Germany:12 (f) | Australia:PG (DVD rating) | New Zealand:PG | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Chile:TE | Finland:K-16 | Norway:12 | Spain:7 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG (video rating) (1986) (cut) | UK:PG (video re-rating) (1995) (uncut) | UK:U (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

No ordinary "single-camera" version was filmed simultaneously with the Cinerama version, resulting in two noticeable dividing lines on the non-Cinerama theater prints, video, TV and DVD versions (indicating the three synchronized film strips originally used). The same problem occurred with the other Cinerama film in release at the time, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), which had not been shot in a "single-camera" version either. Both were MGM films.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Zebulon Prescott sees the rapids on the river, he says they must have taken the wrong fork. But they are are headed downstream. If you are headed downstream and come to a fork, you have no choice which fork to take; you take the one headed downstream. You can only make a choice of which fork to take if you head upstream at some point. In those rafts on that river, they could not have taken the wrong fork.

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.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Quantum Leap: How the Tess Was Won - August 5, 1956 (#1.5)" (1989)

Soundtrack:

Rock of Ages

A whole constellation of magnificent spectacle!

Ford's most distinctive work has dealt with the white American's conquest of the wilderness... He has made films about most of the significant episodes in American history—early colonization of the West, the Civil War, the extermination of the Indians—and in so doing he has recounted the American saga in human terms and made it come alive...

Ford directed one of the episodes of "How the West Was Won," the Civil War... His brief but redeeming contribution effectively recounted the bloody Battle of Shiloh and its aftermath...

Hathaway's strong points were atmosphere, character and authentic locations... He directed, in the film, the episodes of 'The Rivers,' 'The Plains,' and 'The Outlaws.'

George Marshal—the most prolific and most versatile of all major Hollywood filmmakers—directed the episode of 'The Railroad.'

As seen through the eyes of four generations of a pioneer family of New England farmers as they made their way west in the l840s, the scope of "How the West Was Won" is enormous, with essays on the physiology of the West (pioneers, settlers, Indians, outlaws, and adventurers).

The film describes the hard life and times of the Prescott's family across the continent and their fortune to the western shore after years of hardship, loss, love, war, danger and romance...

Stewart appears in the first half hour as a trapper named Linus Rawlings, who marries the daughter (Carroll Baker) of a family migrating West…

The story touched all the bases: runaway wagon trains; Indians stampeding Buffalos; confused and erratic river rapids; the grandeur of Monument Valley, Utah; the rocky mountains; the Black Hills of South Dakota; the clamor of gold in St.Louis; the Cheyenne attack; the Pony Express; the overland telegraph; the coming of the steel roadway of the iron horse; the bloody battle between cattlemen and homesteaders; and some thrilling hand-to-hand fighting…

The result is a stupendous epic Western with 8 Academy Award Nominations including Best Picture and three Academy Awards including Best Original Story and Screenplay; Best Soundand Best Film Editing...

Narrated by Spencer Tracy, "How the West Was Won" enlists the services of such top stars as: Carroll Baker, the strong-minded woman; Gregory Peck, the luckiest gambler; Debbie Reynolds, the perplexing talented singer and dancer; Henry Fonda, the buffalo hunter with gray flowing hair and mustaches; George Peppard, the man with a star; Robert Preston, the decent character with moral flaws; Thelma Ritter, the character woman; Karl Malden, the patriarch; Agnes Moorehead, the unfortunate wife and mother; John Wayne, the major architect of modern warfare; Richard Widmark, the 'king' of the railroad; Russ Tamblyn the Confederate deserter; Andy Levine, the Corporal Ohio volunteer; Lee J. Cobb, the lawman; Carolyn Jones, the worried wife; Eli Wallach, the dangerous outlaw; Rodolfo Acosta, the train robber; Raymond Massey, the great Abraham Lincoln; Walter Brennan and Lee Van Cleef, the thieves to fear…

Alfred Newman and Ken Darby's majestic music takes the pioneers through every conceivable encounter in the West, achieving with conviction a whole constellation of magnificent spectacle...