La Conquête de l'Ouest

Underrated . This is one heck of an epic film . Loaded with many favorite stars James Stewart, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, George Peppard, Debbie Reynolds, Richard Widmark, Robert Preston, Eli Wallach, Brigid Bazlen, Walter Brennan, David Brian, Raymond Massey, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan, Thelma Ritter, Mickey Shaughnessy, Russ Tamblyn, Spencer Tracy ...Narrated by (voice) Just rap your brain around these actors .

Filmed in panoramic Cinerama, this star-studded, epic Western adventure is a true cinematic classic. Three legendary directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford and George Marshall) combine their skills to tell the story of three families and their travels from the Erie Canal to California between 1839 and 1889. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, which cost an estimated $15 million to complete. Westward expansion shows scenes of the Indian's sorrow, the white man's greed, river pirates, outlaws, lawmen, and life and death on the Western plains. Dozens of marquee names worked with over 12,000 extras, 630 horses, hundreds of horse drawn wagons, and a stampede of 2,000 buffalo. The human cost of the concept of Manifest Destiny is revealed in all its colorful and violent glory. How the West Was Won garnered three Oscars, for screenplay, film editing, and sound production.

A story as big, as brash, and as exciting as the west itself. You have to hand it to everyone involved, this is one mammoth viewing experience. This covers generations as well as historical events like no other movie has attempted to do. I think the wisest decision was having multiple directors so each time period has a different feeling and vision. There is no denying the spectacle, the adventure, and the romance in How the West Was Won. It really is true to say they don't make them like this any more.

Turbulent and mighty story about a family saga set against the background of wars and historical deeds ; covering several decades of Westward expansion in the nineteenth century--including the Gold Rush , the Civil War, , Pony Express , Telegraph , confrontation between cattlemen and homesteaders . And of course , the building of the railroads and career between Union Pacific and Central Pacific to arrive in Promontory Point ; among other epic events . As a family of Western settlers from the 1830s to the 1880s , beginning with their voyage on The Eerie Canal and going on to encompass a Civil War battle and other happenings .

The picture gets great action , expansive Western settings , shootouts , love stories , it is quite entertaining and there some some scenes still rate with the best of the West , including marvelous moments along the way . It efficiently describes an attractive panoramic view of the American Western focusing on the tribulations , trials and travels of three generations of a family . It's a big budget film with good actors , technicians, production values and pleasing results . Awesome as well as spectacular scenes such as an exciting white-water rafting sequence , a train robbery , a thundering buffalo stampede and Indian attacks . The Civil War is the shortest part and the weakest including a brief acting by John Wayne as General Sheridan and Harry Morgan as General Ulysses S Grant . Particularly supreme for its all-star cast list with some actors epitomising the spirit of the early West , at least as Hollywood saw it , including a Mountain man as James Stewart , a rogue card player , Gregory Peck , and Debbie Reynolds is notable here as a gorgeous dancer seeking fame and fortune . Not many of the players have a chance to register as a bearded Henry Fonda as a scout , Walter Brennan , Lee Van Cleef , Agnes Moorehead , Ken Curtis , Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln , Agnes Moorehead , Thelma Ritter , Mickey Shaughnessy , Russ Tamblyn and an interminable list ,

Impressive cinematography filmed in Cinerama, and photographed in splendorous Metrocolor , though it loses much of its breathtaking visual impact on TV but otherwise holds up pretty well . All four cinematographers were Oscar-winners such as William H. Daniels , Milton R. Krasner , Milton Krasner , Charles Lang Jr and Joseph LaShelle . Rousing musical score by the classical Alfred Newman , including an immortal leitmotif . The motion picture was spectacularly directed by three veteran filmmakers , they were enlisted by producer Bernard Smith to handle the multi-part frontier stories relating exciting exploits of an ordinary family . Of the five segments, Henry Hathaway directed "The Rivers", "The Plains" and "The Outlaws", John Ford directed "The Civil War" and George Marshall did "The Railroad". Some uncredited work was done by Richard Thorpe. The picture won Oscar 63 to Film editing , Sound , Story and Screenplay . Rating : Extraordinary film , essential and indispensable watching . It's a magnificent example of the kind of old-fashioned blockbuster just don't make anymore .

Watching a letterboxed version of "How the West Was Won," I noticed the dividing lines on the screen, and it was clear that much of the picture was still missing even in this format. But neither hindered my enjoyment of this sprawling epic, even if James R. Webb's Oscar winning screenplay left something to be desired. Alfred Newman's music score is terrific, and so is that all-star cast. Unlike those disaster flicks of the 70s like "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" that claimed to be stuffed with stars but actually boasted "names" (usually familiar performers, primarily from TV, who rarely headlined a first class feature), "How the West Was Won" has the genuine article. John Wayne, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Carroll Baker, and Debbie Reynolds may mean little at the ticket windows of the 90s (and many of them are dead, anyway), but all were above the title stars who carried their own films at the box-office in the early 60s.

Three directors helmed this project but I'd be hard pressed to distinguish whether John Ford, George Marshall or Henry Hathaway were behind the camera during any particular episode if the opening credits didn't identify each segment and its director. I suppose "How the West Was Won" is more quantity than quality, but it's entertaining overall.

In the early 1960s Hollywood found itself under attack by television so had to wheel out some big guns . THE LONGEST DAY and HOW THE WEST WAS WON were a couple of these howitzers . Film,s that lasted several hours full of episodic structure with big names playing the characters . Watching these type of movies years later you can see the thinking behind them but do seem overblown with hindsight and you can also see why film makers wanted to make more intense movies via New Hollywood in the 1970s

That said HTWWW is by no means a bad movie . If there's a problem with it it's the narrative problem of trying to squeeze 100 years of history in to three hours of cinema and to a large degree the film succeeds to a large extent . It also deserves some credit for using Debbie Reynolds and George Peppard - neither of whom were the biggest names in the movie - to play the main linking characters

And yet the problem of the narrative is impossible to overcome entirely successfully . The story remains episodic and has every cliché under the sun . Men are men and women are thankful . White men tend to be extremely good or extremely bad and the indigenous population are noble savages who become mere savages when white man speak with forked tongue . There's also the annoying production value of people standing in front of back projection which jars with the numerous establishing shots taken on location. It's also a conservative film with God frequently getting a name check

But for the most part it's an entertaining Western even for those of us who don't like the genre . Perhaps the reason it does work is because it's so traditional where the world is portrayed in black and white , a world that has never existed in the first place

As a seven year old boy who adored history, I was brought by my mother to see this in Cinemascope on a huge screen. Anyone who has seen this can just imagine the impact.

There has always been a healthy dispute about what historical developments most influenced the outlook and behavior of Americans. Among the candidates are: i) the development of an entirely new world on distant shores - a world where the rules were there to be made as the Pilgrims/Puritans/Quakers and others determined, ii) the colonists' growing self-identity as Americans, the evolution of that separate identity, and these peoples' coordination and cooperation from 1607 to the Albany Union conference in 1759, the Stamp Act Congress in 1763 and the Second Continental Congress' decision to declare independence in 1776, iii) the workings of a multi-racial society due to the presence of aboriginal people and the importation of slaves, iv) the role of the frontier and settlement of a continually receding West, v) the enormity of immigration and their inter-action with the native-born from about the 1840s to the present, vi) the sheer size and diverse conditions of topography and climate, vii) the evolution of democracy over four centuries on a large scale, viii) the experience of modernization over the past century on a scale unknown to, and before, the rest of the world.

This movie in effect tells the fourth story - and tells it in a thrilling, colorful way -- from the 1840s when the frontier was still the Ohio Valley to about 1885 - not so long a time. (Contrast this with the 169 year colonial period).

The movie is stunning - beautifully cast - music you'll always remember - and many powerful and moving scenes. So many scenes live forever in my mind

• the return of the George Peppard character from the Civil War to his family's farmstead in Ohio,

-- the astonishing speech by the Richard Widmark character after the buffalo stampede has killed so many,

-- the wonderfully written emotional scenes whenever Debbie Reynolds was dealing with either Robert Preston's clumsy attempt at courtship ("why with hips like yours, having children would be as easy as rolling off a log") or her own love for the roguish Gregory Peck,

-- the George Peppard family (with the wonderful Carolyn Jones and Debbie Reynolds) singing Greensleaves as the movie nears its end,

-- and the astonishing scene of the West transformed into cloverleaf highways and overpasses after we've been watching a deserted West for several hours.

The pride in those who won the West is so evident throughout the movie - yet it's shown along with losses (the deep sadness of Henry Fonda's mountaineer at the continuing encroachment of civilization, the breach of the boundary set in an Indian treaty due to the railroad's need to set a straight course - and the resulting catastrophe).

Not too many years would pass before movie makers would be telling audiences that the settlement of the West was a triumph of vicious villains, charlatans, cynics and fast-buck artists in movies like McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Soldier Blue, Little Big Man, The Wild Bunch.

But I'm deeply grateful that I was old enough to see how the West was won in a movie like this.