Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie, too bad the quality is poor
Review: It is nice to see this movie in full widescreen version again. Unfortunately, the film had apparently faded and it is very obvious in many shots that three separate cameras were used. Buy it for the classic, but don't expect much quality.
Rating: 
Summary: Not distracting, authentic
Review: When one views this film, they should consider the vertical lines (due to the overlapping of the three images) and the different color tones authentic rather than distracting. This is a film that was breaking new ground. It was the first actual story to be told in cinerama. (Other cinerama films were more like an Omnimax is nowadays; Just an introduction to the filming technique.) Consider D. W. Griffith's "Way Down East" (1920). Most of the film appears to be played at a speed that is unrepresentative of reality. Or, for example, consider the scratchy sound of The Beatles herd on vinyl. The level of technology exhibited in a recording should be a significant part of the experience. What one might call distracting might better be described as authentic. So, whether it is vertical lines, mismatched colors, scratchy records or people-that-move-to-fast, one should celebrate the authenticity of classic recordings rather than be distracted by it.
Rating: 
Summary: This fine old film deserves better treatment (11/30/98)
Review: It appears that the original wide screen version was divided into three sections with a separate camera filming each section. Apparently the film masters for each section have aged differently. The result is that you can see color balance differences in each section of the screen. For example, the left and right may look OK while the center appears faded. The 3 areas of the screen are quite distinct from each other (especially in bright outdoor scenes). For me, it was somewhat like viewing the movie through a kaleidoscope and I found it distracting.
Rating:
Summary: Wake me when it's over
Review: I kind of figured television was responsible for this... movie. HOW THE WEST WAS WON dvd comes with a featurette on the making of the movie, in which we learn that the movie studios developed the Cinerama process (three cameras shot the movie which was projected onto three specially designed screens. Think IMAX) to present an alternative "viewing experience" to compete with television.
Watching this on television, even in a letterbox edition, is excruciating. There are visible bars where the three screens meet. Often the color in one screen doesn't jibe with that of the adjoining screen.
Those defects could be corrected by digital manipulation, I suppose, but what's the point? The Cinerama screen was meant to wrap around the audience and a television screen is flat. What can't be corrected is the lack of close-ups and a surplus of dead space.
Almost all the action takes place in the center panel, and the closest we get to the action is in a medium shot. Most of the time there's nothing happening on the edge panels. Two-thirds of the screen is dead. The only time Cinerama seemed to shine was when chaotic action was swiftly coming at the audience, which is why we are so often treated to onrushing trains and galloping horses and stampeding buffalo shot from a camera in the ground. I think it would have taken a visual genius the likes of a Busby Berkeley to exploit Cinerama's potential without having to open the paddock.
The featurette also tells us HTWWW had a cast of 12,000. I guess maybe a dozen of them weren't miscast, but that's just a guess. The movie opens with Jimmy Stewart, out of character as mountain man Linus Rawlings, canoeing along a river while Spencer Tracy narrates over the action: '(The land) known only to the lonely trappers wandering its vastness in search of beaver...' One and a half scenes later Linus skids his bark next to the Prescott campsite and gives Carroll Baker a pelt to stroke....
Okay. I was bored. What can I say? At least I was paying attention. When Debbie Reynolds delivers a rousing rendition of 'Raise a Ruckus' for the despondent members of the wagon train I wasn't paying much attention at all. By the time Eli Wallach was glaring daggers at George Peppard's kids I was wondering whether or not one should fill in that little hole in the middle of a dvd when you make it into a coaster.
Rating:
Summary: Western Epic
Review: How The West Was Won is a sprawling three hour epic that was so big it needed three directors (Henry Hathaway, George Marshall & directing legend John Ford) to bring the story to life. The movie takes us through the early days of western settlement to post civil war days. The cast is full of Hollywood legends including Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Debbie Reynolds and Gregory Peck. George Peppard and Richard Widmark also have roles. It's fun to see so many stars in one movie, though most of time they don't appear together on screen. One complaint is that the film was the first to be filmed with a three camera method and in certain scenes, you can see seams in the print where the film was spliced together. That is a minor complaint as the film itself is a compelling story and is beautifully filmed, with lush Old West settings. The film was a major success and took home two Oscars in 1963, one for screenplay and one for editing.
Rating:
Summary: America's own "Triumph of the Will" -- Leni would be proud!
Review: In a remarkable coincidence, the same day I saw "How the West was Won" at the Seattle Cinerama (03/01/03), the History Channel aired a program on the history of the wheel. One of the talking-head experts opined that the wheel's invention marked a fundamental change in human thought -- not only was there a technological solution to every problem, but nature could be bent to human will, forced to reveal her secrets and serve us.This is the theme of "How the West was Won." It starts with the title, and extends to nearly everything in the film. The narration tells us that the land had to be wrested from nature and from the "primitive people" who inhabited (and by implication, infested) it. The chorus is continually singing about how "we're headed for the promised land" and those who are willing to work hard will be richly rewarded (except the Chinese railroad laborers, of course). We were justified in overrunning the continent because we are actually "doing something" with it -- as opposed to the Indians, who merely lived there in harmony with nature. Not having invented the wheel, they saw no further possibilities. James Webb's script acknowledge the culture clash between the Americans and the native peoples, recognizing that the latter will have to eventually change or be destroyed. But this is peripheral to the celebration of the industry, hard work, and sacrifice of the Americans, who "tamed" the wilderness. The film ends with a nausea-inducing flyover of the California freeways (I sat next to a guy who'd taken Dramamine in anticipation of such scenes), followed by a flight under the Golden Gate bridge, firmly and unambiguously driving the point home."How the West was Won" is social propaganda, plain and simple. It's the kind of film that could change Osama Bin Laden's mind about destroying the US. (Maybe the State Department could arrange a screening...) As a movie, there's no denying "How the West was Won" is wildly entertaining. Simply as cinematic spectacle, it works magnificently. There are films (such as "2001" and "Lawrence of Arabia") that even the finest video transfer cannot do justice to, and this is one of them. Sitting in the first few rows, you're so close to the screen that you can't take in all of it at once. When the camera tracks into a scene, the sense of physical motion is uncanny. (Can you say "stimulation of peripheral vision"? Sure you can.) And if you haven't seen a buffalo stampede, or a train crash, or a row of cannons firing in sequence on a (roughly) 30' by 90' screen -- well, you haven't lived, cinematically-wise. Story-wise, there's so much material to cover the script cannot begin to do it justice, even in a film lasting 2½ hours. Characters are more types than individuals, and almost every performer is cast to type. (Eli Wallach, in particular, gets to do his "crazy Mexican outlaw" shtick, though without an accent.) It's only the efficiency and focus of the script that keeps the actors from looking altogether foolish. Other than (perhaps) Karl Malden, no one gives what would be considered a "real" performance. The plot (which follows the Prescott family and its descendents over 50 years) is concocted to make Debbie Reynolds' character the sort of farm girl who wants to run off to the big city to become rich, so we're treated to several (mercifully brief) song-and-dance numbers. Her sister is played by Carol Baker, who falls head over heels in love with Jimmy Stewart's "aw-shucks" mountain man, and later "tames" him (as the film's conceit requires). The rest of the film rehashes just about every cliché of westerns and Civil War movies -- though entertainingly. The final sequence posits the "conquest" of the West as occurring when "the law" (in the form of George Peppard's marshall) arrives, to establish justice. But Peppard -- who says he wants to bring the bad'un to justice in court -- shoots him to death, anyway. My five-star rating acknowledges this is a classic film -- not necessarily a great one. I can't pass up the opportunity to trash Pauline Kael, who was not so much a hard-nosed-but-movie-loving critic as she was an empty-headed, loudmouthed [female canine]. Note how she uses the artistic limitations of a single sentence to craft a thoughtful, insightful commentary that will help the reader better understand this film... "'How the West Was Lost' would be a more appropriate title for this dud epic, since, as conceived by the writer, James R. Webb, the pioneers seem to be dimwitted bunglers who can't do anything right." Hello? Were we watching the same movie? "How the West was Won" might be politically incorrect, dramatically shallow, and little more than agit-prop -- but it's no dud. The Seattle audience -- which included many people sporting "No Iraq War" buttons -- just ate it up. "How the West was Won" is Hollywood middlebrow-populist entertainment at its best. One final question... Where did they find a stunt man who looked like Agnes Moorhead?
Rating:
Summary: Flawed movie and DVD
Review: This movie aside from the flawed DVD Warners gave it, was truely one sided. No mention of slavery, no mention of how Native American culture was destroyed, no mention of the slaughter of the Bison, just two long hours of many familar actors working with a messy script and over-blown production work. Just a big mess,that;s all.
Rating: 
Summary: Technical problems bring this down
Review: By the late 1950s, everyone had a television, and they were staying home to watch it, rather than going out to the theater. Movie attendance was way down from what it had been in the 1940s. Moviemakers tried various gimmicks to make theater attendence an "event" and thereby draw people out of their living rooms and into movie theaters. One of these gimmicks was Cinerama, which was a type of widescreen presentation that wrapped around the audience on the edges of the screen. The process used three cameras and three projectors to achieve the effect. At first, only travelogs were shot using the 3 camera process, but someone had the idea to shoot a feature film. So they approved a big budget (at the time) of $15,000,000, and gathered a cast of thousands, including some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, Debbie Reynolds, Richard Widmark, John Wayne, etc.
You need to see this in a Cinerama theater to really appreciate it. Although there are many good performances in the movie, it feels gimmicky. First of all, the seams between the cameras are very obvious. Throughout the movie, you will see two vertical bars dividing the screen real estate into three tracts. Also, because TV has a flat screen, and the middle panel is not recessed as it was in Cinerama, some of the action close to the camera in the middle panel jumps out, freakishly, at the viewer. There are also dots and scratches galore. Obviously, no attempt was made to digitally clean up the film.
Moreover, it feels like the film's plot was made to be the servant of the action sequences it wanted to show off using the Cinerama process. There's a trip down the rapids on a raft, an indian charge on a wagon train, a wagon race away from the indians, a buffalo stampede, and a running gunfight on a train. All of this was designed to be viewed in a Cinerama theater, giving the audience a thrill ride that simply could not be matched at home in front of small (probably black and white) Television. So, I can appreciate why this was a big event movie in 1962. And you can understand why it is not quite an event as a DVD watching experience in 2005. Nevertheless, the characters and story were interesting enough that, I must admit, I watched the whole movie.
Rating:
Summary: How The Seams Weren't Won
Review: Doesn't Time-Warner have enough money yet to give us a proper transfer of this film? I'd figured the 1998 DVD version of it could be forgiven for including the old Cinerama seams, so I hurriedly bought this new 2004 edition assuming they'd gotten those bugs out. Wrong!
So they can heap costly CGI and other special effects junk on us, but they can't erase and color correct some glitches from a 1962 film? Yikes! They didn't even bother to clean off the old pops and scratches, either. I guess this shows that Warners has NO respect for those stars who toiled for many decades to virtually make their studio what it is today. What ungrateful young punks!
Rating:
Summary: True classic is a library must!
Review: Debbie Reynolds is at her second best in this Epic. Only better as the Unsinkable Molly Brown! Always entertains me each time I watch this.
|
