How the West Was Won

One of the biggest and most ambitious of Hollywood's epics, How the West Was Won (1962) is excellent bravura entertainment, utilizing its unique Cinerama filming to the fullest. It's certainly impressive spectacle and a highly entertaining film, even if it's ultimately not the sum of its parts.

Divided into five chapters, the film (narrated by Spencer Tracy) tells the story of the taming of the Old West through the eyes of the Rawlings family. In 1830, Zebulon (Karl Malden) takes the family out west via the Erie Canal. Zebulon's daughter Eve (Carrol Baker) falls for fur trader Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who saves them from a gaggle of river pirates. Two decades later in St. Louis, Eve's sister Lily (Debbie Reynolds) is a dance-hall girl who decides to go West to San Francisco. Surviving an Indian attack on the way, Lily is caught in a romantic triangle with gambler Cleve (Gregory Peck) and wagon master Roger (Robert Preston). When the Civil War breaks out, young Zeb (George Peppard) enlists in the Union Army and sees action at the bloody Battle of Shiloh, where he saves the lives of Generals Ulysses Grant (Harry Morgan) and William Sherman (John Wayne) from a Rebel deserter (Russ Tamblyn). Zeb goes west and finds himself embroiled in the contest between the Union and Central Pacific Railroads, which also provokes the Arapaho Indians. Finally, Zeb ends up with a lawman, facing off against train robbery Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach) and his gang.

Helmed by three big name directors, shot in Cinerama (the three-panel, curved format of super-ultra widescreen) and with half of Hollywood in the cast, How the West Was Won is heavy on the spectacle. The story is episodic, with five different chapters spanning the better part of a century. Despite the attempt to connect the stories - most of our protagonists are members of the same family, a recurring musical cue is feature, and Zeb features in the final three chapters - there's no real flow or narrative drive between the sections, a regrettable flaw. The movie doesn't achieve the scope required for the ostensible awe at "the taking of the West" to take hold. To be fair, the individual episodes are generally strong, well-crafted vignettes, but it's not a terribly deep film on the levels of story, character or themes. Its virtues lie elsewhere.

Henry Hathaway (True Grit) does the balance of the film, including the two best scenes: an exciting rapids scene, and Zeb's shootout with train robbers. John Ford handles the shortest episode, a brief account of the Civil War, which seems rushed and curiously underdeveloped, cribbing battle footage from Raintree County. George Marshall (Destry Rides Again) gets the "railroad" segment, a draggy, dramatically-inert segment that goes on too long. There's relatively-little difference in style, perhaps due to the format, and the movie isn't as uneven as it ought to be.

In the many dialogue scenes, the directorial styles are uniformly static. Not to worry, though, as there's plenty of spectacle to admire, from beautiful location shooting to lots of thundering action scenes: the rapids, a cast-of-hundreds Indian attack, a buffalo stampede, a running gun battle on a moving train. Even without the required Cinerama process, the movie is one hell of a ride, and rarely fails to entertain. Accompanied by an excellent Alfred Newman score, the movie is certainly exciting, and succeeds in its primary goal even when the story flags.

As with many all-star epics of the time - The Longest Day, The Greatest Story Ever Told - West assembles a huge cast of big stars and gives them all glorified bit parts. Oddly though, even the dubious thrill of star-spotting is largely diminished here, not least because the Cinerama format prevents extensive close-ups.

Some actors do manage to stand out. James Stewart and Carrol Baker have a sweet, melancholy romance in their early segment. Gregory Peck does surprisingly well against-type as a shifty gambler. Eli Wallach plays another "charming bandit" part in arguably the film's best sequence. Scene-stealers Walter Brennan and Thelma Ritter make the most of minuscule screen time, and the attentive viewer can spot Lee Van Cleef and Harry Dean Stanton in bit parts.

A few cast members stand out in a bad way. The biggest role, unfortunately, goes to George Peppard, who is stiff and uncharismatic as usual. John Wayne and Harry Morgan have an odd, poorly-written and indifferently-acted scene as Generals Sherman and Grant. Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark are uncharacteristically wooden in their comparative-large roles.

How the West Was Won may not add up to a great film on the whole, but the individual parts are just dandy. If you're looking for a lot of impressive scenery and spectacle, then this film's for you.