How the West Was Won (1962)

Directed by Henry Hathaway, John Ford & George Marshall. Starring George Peppard, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Carroll Baker, Gregory Peck, Karl Malden, Robert Preston, Richard Widmark, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach, Carolyn Jones, Agnes Moorehead, Andy Devine, Walter Brennan, John Wayne, Harry Morgan, Russ Tamblyn, Mickey Shaughnessy, Raymond Massey, (voice) Spencer Tracy. [G]

Epic extravaganza romanticizing the taming of the West may very well have looked glorious on Cinerama screens, but it flounders on the small screen—its wide picture and multiple camera perspectives eliminate all closeups and suggestive angles, resulting in a dull sameness without the artistic compositions to compensate; even worse, the three panels are separated by vertical lines (sometimes faint enough to be almost invisible, sometimes so prominent that it looks like the negative had been folded up like a letter), which is the sort of distraction that can/will periodically inspire a curse of anger directed toward the gimmick. As for the story itself—or stories themselves, since this is a five-part anthology of segments tracing three generations of pioneers, mountain men, homesteaders, gamblers, etc., mostly orbiting the Prescott family as they set out west for a new way of life—it’s about as average as can be, lacking dramatic fire and movement, stamped in genre clichés, and disseminated over too many thinly-drawn character types. Hoary but comfortable platitudes abound, and although most of the acting is okay for the material (a certain flavor of ham and/or oak comes with the territory), no one jumps out to stake a claim with a memorable characterization. The majority of the famous faces who pop up in supporting roles barely rate anything more than cameos; keep your eyes peeled for soon-to-be-famous-faces in even smaller roles, like Lee Van Cleef and Harry Dean Stanton.

45/100