How the West Was Won (1962)

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How the West Was Won (1962)
Topic Started: Sep 27 2009, 05:04 AM (186 Views)
Laughing Gravy	Sep 27 2009, 05:04 AM Post #1
Revered in the UK Posts: 11,069 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: August 31, 2005	Mmmkay, so, last night, still in the midst of a frantic, stressful Board of Directors meeting weekend, I decided to skip the social events and stay home and watch a movie, which I elected to be my brand-spankin'-new Blu-ray edition of a film I'd never seen, How the West Was Won. The Blu-ray (which needs a shorter, DVD-like monicker; can I call it BR?) comes with two editions of the film, one regular widescreen (watched a bit of it) and "smilebox", which is a colossal curved screen that approximates what the movie looked like in Cinerama, more or less (my TV is only 50 inches). Technically, a very impressive offering - the movie looks amazing and sounds great. The movie itself? Well, the Cinerama is every bit as much a gimmick as 3-D; several sequences are shot to show off the process. When it's impressive, though, it's as impressive as anything I've seen on film, spectacle-wise; particularly, a buffalo stampede that pounded and rumbled through my living room was just incredible and yet was topped a bit later by a chase across a train full of tumbling lumber (a chase directed, so IMDB tells us, by the great Richard Talmadge). Oh, yeah, the movie. A bunch of really big stars and featured players spend a little more than 3 hours heading westward, more or less, to California. Only Debbie Reynolds(!) is onscreen for pretty much the whole trip, and her songs are... well, unfortunate. As for the rest, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, and Karl Malden come across the best (Walter Brennan is good, too) and you'll wonder what th' hell John Wayne and Carolyn Jones (among others) are doing in the picture, besides picking up a paycheck. Still, it's big, I never thought it got dull, and the set-pieces (including a Civil War segment directed by John Ford) are suitably impressive. Unfortunately, by the last part of the picture, we're saddled with much less impressive actors (Gregory Peck looks good but has little to do, George Peppard is dull, Robert Preston looks like he's about to sing a song about the evils of a pool hall opening in town, and what the hell is Russ Tamblyn up to???) which affects the film's pace. I liked it a lot anyway, and I fully thought I was gonna have to clean buffalo chips off the living room floor this mornin'...



Frank Hale	Sep 27 2009, 03:05 PM Post #2
Balcony Gang, Foist Class Posts: 828 Group: Members Member #59 Joined: October 6, 2005	Don’t they call it “BD” mostly? I saw a couple of Cinerama epics first-run in NY. The people in the front rows must have suffered permanent damage. You make Smile-O-Rama sound pretty good, though! The opening helicopter shot is nice, as is the scene when Mr. Peppard exits the cabin to return to civilization, mostly because of the music. The train fight is gimmicky fun, of course. You can keep the rest. Mr. Peppard is not a strong enough performer to hold up the second half of the picture, and the scenes of Carroll Baker (?) coming on to James Stewart are positively embarrassing. Another one of those 60’s all-star productions more interesting as an artifact than as entertainment.



panzer the great & terrible	Sep 28 2009, 07:28 PM Post #3
Mouth Breather Posts: 10,340 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	I'm with you, Frank. The John Ford sequence has to be the worst thing he ever did bar none. I'm Ford's biggest fan (I'll defend Two Rode Together and The Horse Soldiers all night long), but this thing is stiff, formal, and Irish in the worst way. I hated the movie, and I'd rather buy the Sam Fuller set, even. The best Cinerama movie was the first, This is Cinerama. If I had walked out after the first sequence, the rollercoaster ride, I might remember it as a great movie. The rest was dull though -- not as dull as How the West Was Won, but dull. Don't waste your money, guys. Buy good crap, not expensive crap.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


JazzGuyy	Sep 29 2009, 02:16 AM Post #4
Balcony Gang, Foist Class Posts: 2,177 Group: Members Member #110 Joined: June 1, 2006	How the West Was Won can't be Ford's worst work, not as long as there is Tobacco Road. While not great, I don't think West is as bad as you do, Paul. It's mediocre but lots of it is beautiful to look at. Cinerama in the theaters was pretty poor in my opinion. The seams where each screen met always had this sort of flickering image problem that made them almost unwatchable to me.



Vornoff	Sep 30 2009, 03:43 PM Post #5
Charter Member Posts: 483 Group: Members Member #54 Joined: September 16, 2005	Well do I remember seeing HTWWW in Cinerama. I was just blown away - loved that thing back then. I think I've seen at least parts of it again since but I wouldn't mind trying to watch the whole movie. Those songs really stayed with me - "Shenandoah", The main theme, "Raise a Ruckus" and lots more. I had the lp of it and played it to death. You can sample the songs here: http://www.amazon.com/How-West-Was-Won-Soundtrack/dp/B0012EHZWY
	"Doctor of nothing!"


panzer the great & terrible	Oct 1 2009, 07:56 PM Post #6
Mouth Breather Posts: 10,340 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	Well, ya know, jazzy, I don't think of Ford's Broadway adaptations as real Ford films, except The Long Voyage Home, which came from four one-acts most folks hadn't read, so he could fiddle with them without annoying anybody but me. The comparison to HTWWW is The Big Trail, a visually stunning movie that literary-minded critics don't like, but which tells the story of the westward movement convincingly and on an epic scale, which HTWWW doesn't come close to doing. There's also Carroll Baker's atrocious performance and Debbie Reynolds' miscasting. You keep expecting her to burst into song. What I particularly dislike about the Ford sequence is that nothing moves; it's like a DAR pageant. Plumb awful.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


JazzGuyy	Oct 2 2009, 02:15 PM Post #7
Balcony Gang, Foist Class Posts: 2,177 Group: Members Member #110 Joined: June 1, 2006	panzer the great & terrible Oct 1 2009, 07:56 PM Well, ya know, jazzy, I don't think of Ford's Broadway adaptations as real Ford films, except The Long Voyage Home, which came from four one-acts most folks hadn't read, so he could fiddle with them without annoying anybody but me. The comparison to HTWWW is The Big Trail, a visually stunning movie that literary-minded critics don't like, but which tells the story of the westward movement convincingly and on an epic scale, which HTWWW doesn't come close to doing. There's also Carroll Baker's atrocious performance and Debbie Reynolds' miscasting. You keep expecting her to burst into song. What I particularly dislike about the Ford sequence is that nothing moves; it's like a DAR pageant. Plumb awful. I didn't say it was Ford's finest hour but not his worst either. All of these pictures that have multiple directors kicking in a section of the picture and/or where tons of big stars show up in cameo roles and small to medium parts have never worked though they seemed to impress people at the time. When's the last time anyone heard anything good said about Around the World In 80 Days?



panzer the great & terrible	Oct 3 2009, 01:19 PM Post #8
Mouth Breather Posts: 10,340 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	But it won Best Picture, didn't it? That was the year I lost faith in the Oscars. Best picture, but no story, and Shirley Maclaine as an Indian princess, for Pete's sake. I guess the best of the "cameo role" pictures was The Longest Day, but it wasn't all that wonderful. The real story of D-Day could make a fine movie. The Great Race always seemed on the verge of being good, but never quite made it.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


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