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Official Synopsis:
With courage, sinew and conflict: that's how the west was won. With three directors, five interlocked stories, some of movie history's most legendary action scenes and a constellation of acting talent: that's how How the West Was Won was filmed. Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart and John Wayne are among the big names in this big saga following a family's move West through generations - marked by the spectacles of a heart-pounding raging river tide, a thunderous buffalo stampede and a bracing runaway train shootout. Via technological advances, this panoramic winner of three Academy Awards can now be seen with a resplendent, restored clarity eliminating its original "three-panel join lines" and in roof-raising Dolby 5.1 audio. Westward ho!
Our Take:
How the West Was Won is a sprawling epic of a Western directed by four separate directors, which is more or less a showcase for the Cinerama technology. The best way to think about it would be if three top directors got together and directed a film exclusively for IMAX using only IMAX cameras. The directors here are Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall, and the uncredited Richard Thorpe. The film is broken up into five vignettes, which trace the development of the West during the 19th Century from the earliest settlers up until the completion of the intercontinental railroad.
The bulk (three vignettes) of the film was directed by Henry Hathaway who, along with George Marshall (one vignette), seems to enjoy playing with the Cinerama camera quite a bit and stage their scenes accordingly. The Civil War segment was directed by John Ford and is without a doubt the greatest part of the How the West Was Won and makes the DVD worth the purchase for it alone. The Civil War segment features a young idealistic man who leaves his mother and races off to fight the good fight in the Civil War. John Wayne turns up as a disillusioned and disgruntled General William Sherman along with Harry Morgan as a drunken Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Ford’s cynical vision of the war is tempered by the humanism of his segment. Ford, in typical fashion, constructed the most beautifully shot sequence of How the West Was Won by being the lone director not to jump through elaborately placed staging hoops to play with the new toy that was Cinerama. How the West Was Won is loaded with stars, but all of them, while good, take a back seat to the technology in this picture as the rich detail and sheer grandiosity of scope will detract from even the best performances. The acting highlights of the film actually bookend the film, as they are Karl Malden as an early settler in the first segment and Richard Widmark as ruthless railroad foreman, Mike King, in the last.
How the West Was Won is one of the great experiments in American cinema. The film was the first and last dramatic film shot with the three-camera-process known as Cinerama. The original Cinerama process involved shooting with three cameras that shared a single shutter and then projecting the image on a gigantic screen that was curved 146 degrees. Naturally, such an advanced theatrical presentation along with the three-strip approach utilized for How the West Was Won made home video reproduction of this title quite a difficult task. Luckily, Warner Bros. newest DVD release of the film is a revelation. The biggest problem with How the West Was Won used to be seeing the distracting seams on screen where the film strips were connected, but that is not the case this time around. The instances where the seams are visible are rare. The richness and detail of the film, which is spread out over two discs, is a remarkable sight.
How the West Was Won: Ultimate Edition is a three-disc release that is loaded with extras and collectibles as follows:
Bonus Collectibles
* 36-Page Cinerama Souvenir Book Reproduction
* 10 Collectible Color Photo Cards
* 10 Black-and-White Photo Cards of Behind-the-Scenes Shots
* 20-Page Reproduction of the Original General Release Pressbook
* Mail-Away Offer ($3.25 shipping and handling) - For a 27’’x40’’ replica How the West Was Won movie poster – offer expires 11/26/08.
Disc 1 (Includes 1st Half of the Film)
* Audio Commentary - By filmmaker David Strohmaier, Cinerama, Inc. director John Sittig, film historian Rudy Behlmer, music historian Jon Burlingame, and stuntman Loren James.
* Original Trailer
Disc 2 (Includes 2nd Half of the Film)
* Audio Commentary - By filmmaker David Strohmaier, Cinerama, Inc. director John Sittig, film historian Rudy Behlmer, music historian Jon Burlingame, and stuntman Loren James.
Disc 3
* Cinerama Adventure (96 minutes) – A feature-length documentary on the history of Cinerama.
How the West Was Won: Ultimate Collector’s Edition is one of the top DVD releases of 2008 as it combines the perfect mix of historical supplements, strong technical audio/video representation, a strong film, collectibles, and handsome packaging. How the West Was Won marked a technical milestone in motion picture history for its use of Cinerama and it is nice to have that moment so beautifully preserved on DVD.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Overall Picture:
Movie: B+
DVD: A+
- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer
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