Rating: 
Summary: A Silly Movie At Best
Review: The DVD version of this movie is simply unwatchable on a
widescreen TV. Large vertical bars divide the screen into
three sections. Often the colors don't even match between
the segments. On a small portable DVD player, these format
issues aren't as irritating and you can concentrate on the movie
itself, which is quite silly. Debbie Reynolds, sings and dances
her way across the old west! I can imagine this film would be
quite entertaining if viewed in Cinerama, it really does sprawl.
On the small screen, though, it's a stinker.
Rating: 
Summary: Come, Come, It's A Wondrous Land
Review: In the early 1960s, Life magazine ran a serialized historical narrative on the settling of the American West. It was a project full of old photographs, maps, line drawings, reproduced paintings and sketches from 19th-century artists, and specially commissioned contemporary artwork from noted illustrators. It followed along the same lines as a series Life had done on World War One, and another on the Civil War.In many respects it was a print media prototype for the kind of historical documentaries that filmmaker Ken Burns would later become lauded for.
Like its predecessors, this Life Magazine series became enormously popular with the American reading public...and quite a sales draw for Time-Life. It also laid the groundwork for Time-Life's later book series, "The Old West".
It was called "How The West Was Won".
Hollywood, ever mindful of good prospective "hooks" for siphoning off the public's spare dollars, was so greatly impressed with the popularity of "How The West Was Won" that "it" (in this case MGM) purchased the screen rights to the magazine series. This was somewhat unusual, as most of the time it was novels or biographies that were rights-secured, or fiction stories from magazines such as the "Saturday Evening Post"("Red River" being an example of such). Something from a serialized non-fiction source was a bit of an oddity.
But MGM thought it was onto something, and it turned out they were. The studio envisioned something BIG, and the settling of the west had just the scope they felt they were looking for. And they had this gimmick they wanted to play with as well; a film process called Cinerama that could make big things even bigger. Bigger than Cinemascope, bigger than Panavision, bigger than VistaVision. This process used three synchronized cameras shooting the same scene, and when you put their imagery side by side and projected it all simultaneously, you definitely had yourself something B I G. So Metro and the Cinerama Company (which owned the patents on this process) joined forces and made this mega-movie, which is one of the cultural icons of the post-WWII"baby boomer" generation. So, is it any good? Yes it is, as a matter of fact. But it IS a strange beast to evaluate. It is choppy and episodic, and runs through multiple story lines all bridged together under the framework of a family history. Some people evaluating it now often "see" it as being too "Euro-centric" and "white", with not enough prominence or empathy for the Indians in evidence (yes, INDIANS! That's what they call themselves TO THIS DAY, and I'm not going to let any contemporary PC silliness about "Native Americans"...They WEREN'T...not if they immigrated here across a pleistocene land bridge from Asia...cause me to forego using a long-standing and totally no-offense-intended terminology to describe them). This "not enough empathy" bit I find nit-picky, disingenuous, and mostly bogus. This movie makes the Indians good guys right from the start, in the mountain man sequences with Jimmy Stewart as Linus Rawlings. They are shown as his friends and "woodland brothers". When they appear later on in the film it is in direct contention with the railroad..the "Iron Horse"..and in this section of the film the Indians are shown as being IN THE RIGHT and being "Done Dirty" BY the high-handed railroad...the straight-up historical TRUTH (and the reason the railroads were so roundedly hated...and those who harassed them...everyone from Frank & Jesse James to Butch Cassidy's Hole In the wall Gang...so roaringly popular with the common folk). If there IS any ethnic short-changing here it mostly involves the Chinese (ENORMOUS influences in the settling of the west) and blacks (nearly one out of every four cowboys was black).But, Jeez, this movie has only SO MUCH TIME to cover SO MUCH GROUND that it is absurd to think they could have accomodated everybody's "credit due". Get real. Despite all its perceived "flaws" (many of them real and many of them agenda-driven), "How the West Was Won" gets the job done as entertainment, and even does the same FAIRLY well as a historical piece. It overcomes its episodic nature with heart, verve, and enthusiasm; with great photography of marvelous locales (provided you can overlook the annoying Cinerama seam lines on the picture), with effective performances from a gaggle of big-name actors and actresses, with superlative stunt work and slick editing and optical printer compositing, and with one of the most stirring and memorable musical scores ever recorded for the medium. This score is legendary and gives the film so much of its power that the presence of it alone is one of the main things that puts "Won" over the top as successful movie entertainment.THIS is MOVIE MUSIC!!!! And the train battle with George Peppard and Lee J. Cobb vs. Eli Wallach and friends at the conclusion of the film is a DOOZY! When all is said and done, this is a feel-good movie that makes the grade as "good stuff" DESPITE its imperfections. And it is also the kind of film that can't be made today...because the controlled salary rate of the old Studio system is gone now and nobody, but NOBODY, can afford to pay the salaries of THIS MANY bona fied stars within the framework of one feature film...not unless Bill Gates wants to allow himself a big-a** tax write-off!
Rating: 
Summary: It is Cinerama and that's it
Review: My son and I have just seen the Cinerama (3 strip) re-release at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. I've grown up on the movie, but my 24 year old son was seeing it for the first time. Believe it or not, this was the first time I have seen it in the full, Cinerama (3 strip film) format. Some people lament that no video transfer can capture the true Cinerama image, and ask MGM to release a "proper widescreen" version. Being Cinerama, no video release can ever truly capture the ultra-wide screen format of three separate pictures running simultaniously. I was surprised to see the "seams" in it's original format. In fact, one engineer's sole job during projection is to keep these seams straight! I noticed that, even in it's original format, there is actually a slight distortion of the image on the very outer edges of the deeply curved screen. It is no wonder that the various directors correctly kept their actors framed within the center of the screen, leaving the edges (with a few exceptions) for "fill" - to expand the screen in an attempt to create the normal range of vision of the human eye. After HOW THE WEST WAS WON, Cinerama changed to a single lens system primarily because the wide-eyed lenses used for Cinerama could not be used for close-ups, which are consipictiously missing in true Cinerama. The Cinerama company (and the studios) still wanted the aspect ratio that the Cinerama process achieved, so they went to Super Panavision 70 or Ultra-Panavision. The problem was that, when these 70mm films were initially released, the advertising stated that they were presented "in Cinerama," which may have confused patrons who thought they were seeing the original, 3-strip process. That's why I've always insisted that I saw a "Cinerama" version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. That Kubrick film was not made in true Cinerama but in Super Panavision 70. As far as the aspect ratio is concerned, the various video transfers of HOW THE WEST WAS WON are probably as good as we can get.
Rating: 
Summary: My favorite Western Epic... but I don't know why...
Review: OK, OK, the frame ratio is not 2.35:1 and should be somewhere around 2.66:1, but who cares, considering the wonderful landscapes (some gone nowadays - documentary value!!!), a cast of thousands, who actually work for their money and a principal cast of characters and directors, worth as much gold as all the Oscars ever distributed.
A haunting and poetic music covers it all and the off-screen commentary read by Spencer Tracy, is still worth all the money in the world.
It's pure Americana, pure escapism, but with tons of poetry and beauty. It might not be a history lesson on how the U.S. developed, but it certainly reflects and sums up, some of the values and faults that still pervade American society today.
It's a sincere expression of love for one's Country and as such it is a true love declaration.
Despite being just a buggled up product, spanning the early 1820s
to the "the fight against outlaws" in the late 1890s, taking one family of settlers as an example, all in it, is America as we know it.
Although naive in scope, I love this spectacle, probably because there is something for everybody's taste in it.
I can only hope that the people at MGM or at Warners come finally to their senses and will finally release the full widescreen edition of the movie.
For the rest, what can I say? This is a "must buy"!
Rating:
Summary: If only they could smooth out the picture...
Review: ...I'd give it five stars. As other reviewers have mentioned, the onscreen "seams" left over by the three-camera Cinerama project are distracting, and of course the film loses something by transfer to a small TV screen. But otherwise it is both a classic and a family epic. (If you can find the souvenier program book, it's well worth a look; mine, among other things, tells me that the costumes--literally thousands--were all sewn by hand because the Cinerama cameras picked up on machine sewing. And Louis L'Amour's novelization, which may still be available secondhand, both follows the script closely and expands upon some of the information given on-screen.) Beginning c. 1830 with Zebulon Prescott (Malden), his wife and four children (two nubile daughters, a near-grown son and an ailing smaller one) on their way "down the O-hi-o," it continues through elder daughter Eve's (Baker) love-at-first-sight meeting with eastbound mountain man Linus Rawlings (Stewart), younger sister Lilith's (Reynolds) trek West during the Gold Rush and her eventual union with gambler Cleve Van Valen (Peck), the service of Eve's elder son Zeb (Peppard) in the Civil War and later in the Cavalry guarding the transcontinental railroad a-building, and finally his reunion with widowed Aunt Lilith, who wants him to take over as foreman of her ranch in Arizona Territory, and a confrontation with old nemesis outlaw Charley Gant (Wallach) that climaxes in a heart-in-your-mouth gun duel aboard a runaway train. Indeed, each of the five major divisions of the movie includes one or more edge-of-the-seat sequences--a brawl with river pirates and a deadly raft trip through rapids in the first, a running battle between Cheyenne raiders and a westbound wagon train in the second, battle sequences full of cannonades and cavalry charges in the third, and a buffalo stampede through the railroad construction camp in the fourth. Like "Around the World in 80 Days," another favorite of mine, it also seethes with Big Names in cameo roles, among the best of them being Fonda as buffalo hunter and ex-mountain-man Jethro Stuart, Ritter as the man-hungry lady blacksmith Aggie Clegg, Brennan as the leader of the pirate gang, Preston as wagonmaster Roger Morgan, and Widmark as heartless rail construction boss Mike King. (Spencer Tracy's rich-voiced narration is another plus.) By relating the westward movement to the experiences of a single family, it succeeds as a drama (though necessarily an episodic one) and makes the history seem more accessible. The whole family should enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the wait
Review: It was great being able to see How The West Was Won as it was when I first saw it at the age of 12. The restoration of the colors is excellent and though some may complain about the three-camera process, not only are you experiencing a great western, you are also experiencing film processing history. It is unfortunate that Amazon says that the DVD ships in 24 hours. It took them nearly a month to ship it to me.
Rating:
Summary: Viewing a 1964 cut of HTWWW
Review: The picture of the DVD (and the widescreen VHS video and probably the Laserdisk) are from the Cinemascope version patched together around 1963 or 1964 so the film could be shown in cities without Cinerama 3-projector theatres. As such the 2.7 Cinerama (or so) ratio was cut down to Cinemasope's 2.35. As is evident this was not a pan-and-scan job, the center of the picture was transferred. I theorize that the Dolby Surround sound is a mix from the 4 channel Cinerama print. Others here state that the mix is different from before so this may not be true. While I, like the others, would love the see the film restored and sound remized, we must realize that this is all custom format material (film and sound). The sound could still be easily digitized and remixed (regardless of the print). However the print would require a lot of custom transfer and editing just to get to the color correction part. This may not be an economically viable project. Some artifacts can not be removed: obvious ones like the bent bridges during the closing sequence, plus others that I haven't tought about. I saw this in Cinerama in Dayton during its brief revival in the late 90's. The experience was fabulous!
Rating:
Summary: I was only disappointed in the sound
Review: The 3 projector process (Cinerama) was not the greatest compaired to what we have now. Don't let the reviews cast doubt about buying this wonderful film. If you saw this in a Cinerama Theatre or watch the DVD the lines will be and would still have been there. That was just the process. For the audience, it was shire pleasure seeing this giant curved wrap-a-round screen of technology.But the sound is another story. In Cinerama the sound was magnetic and offered lots of stereo channels to follow the voices of the cast, special sound effects and the wonderful music score. This part of the transfer did not go well. The voices are in mono and the music is just plain surround. It isn't terrible but with a little more thought this transfer could have been a masterpiece.My only other disappointment is i do not understand especially with a DVD and a menu that tells you what scene is what, why do you have to be told that this is the "Overture?" Why can't these roadshows that have and overture just be a black screen when the music is playing. This is basically my only frustration.Never-the-less this film is still worth owning inspite of the flaws. You'll never see a cast like that again. It would also be nice to see the other Cinerama films transferred like "This is Cinerama", "The Best of Cinerama", The Seven Wonders of the World" and all the others. Remember the old slogan???? CINERAMA PUTS YOU IN THE PICTURE.
Rating:
Summary: Setting a new standard
Review: I am not old enough to have seen the original release of this film in the three screen cinerama process so forgive my settling for the widescreen edition. This film ranks with THE ALAMO and DUEL IN THE SUN as my favirote westerns of all time it also sets the standard for all the epic westerns to follow (of which there were not many). I first saw t on Turner Classic Movies and loved it seeing it in all its glory on DVD was a refreshing experience I highly recomend this film for any fan of Westerns.
Rating:
Summary: Epic western
Review: This is a very good epic western. It's not the best film
in the western genre, but it is decent. Also try:The Alamo
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