How the West Was Won
three-disc special,Warner Home Video, 2008, 164 minutes, $29.98.
Warner Bros. created this epic in 1962 for Cinerama, a format using three projectors to create a widescreen image on a 146-degree curved screen. While the Cinerama image was breathtaking on the big screen, it did not translate well to VHS and then DVD, because the seams between the three panels were visible. Now comes a DVD version that digitally unifies the panels into a seamless single widescreen image. It works. The West never looked better, with colorful vistas galore (yes, Monument Valley makes an appearance) and plenty of pretty and/or familiar faces—Carroll Baker, Debbie Reynolds, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, George Peppard, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark, Robert Preston, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb. This new edition of the MGM classic is spread over two discs, while the third disc contains a comprehensive documentary about the “Cinerama Adventure.”
So How the West Was Won looks good again, but how does it hold up more than 45 years later? Well, just fine if you like action and big-name stars and believe the West was won by courageous and spunky white men and women, some of whom can sing and dance real good. Indians are given short shrift, but they are not treated badly; in fact the film makes a point of saying how the native tribes were mostly living at peace with each other and the mountain men before the settlers and miners moved to the neighborhood. Later Indians do what Indians often do in Hollywood— attack a wagon train—but that sort of thing was known to happen in the real West, too, and it makes for a good show. Other top action scenes include rafts running the rapids and outlaws shooting it out with the good guys on a moving train carrying rolling logs. Henry Hathaway directed those episodes. John Ford, George Marshall and Richard Thorpe (not credited) directed other segments. Some members of the stellar cast are somewhat wooden or not gritty enough, but the restored clarity and uplifting music carry us along like one big happy pioneer family.
Originally published in the February 2009 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
