I hated this movie - How the West Was Won (1963) Discussion

[–] 18 years ago

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The United States was corny in 1962 and it is not corny today?

"It's the stuff that dreams are made of."

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I believe that the lack of different camera angles and set ups might have to do with the fact that they were using the monsterous Cinerama camera which was maybe just too difficult to move around! Or as with a lot early widescreen productions they may have felt that the all encompassing view was enough and that they did't need to do different set-ups. (which I disagree with).

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[–] WalterDenton 18 years ago

Now this I concur with
"It's the stuff that dreams are made of."

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[–] rogerc210 18 years ago

Sometimes corn tastes pretty good.

There's only 1 Yogi Bear. They tried a 2nd time, & they made a Booboo!HeyeyeyhEY!

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[–] jomirza 18 years ago

Somebody up above (on the listings, not in heaven) was spot on with the explanation of wide angle shots prevailing with no closeups. The Cinerama camera projected an image on a curved screen with a field of vision approximating that of the human eye. A closeup of Henry Fonda on the wide, wide screen would have made him look like the mountain man that at Pittsburgh. The Cinerama camera WAS too bloody big (it was the unwieldy nature of the beast that turned John Ford off and made him swear never to film in the Cinerama process again) and closeups showed normally unseen no-no's like machine stitching on the costumes, facial blemishes, etc. Also, to compensate for the curved screen actors had to stand in awkward groupings and recite lines looking over their co-stars shoulders rather than their eyes. If you watch the scene where Fonda shoots the buffalo from the gulley, on the flat screen he looks like he is aiming in an entirely different direction than in that where the animal falls. Odd things like that that don't translate the awe and magnificence of the Cinerama process to the small 12" screen so the naysayer up above is absolved and forgiven. Hey, loved the Yogi Bear comment.

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] pbl1 16 years ago

"The United States was corny in 1962 and it is not corny today?"

stupid comment. the film may or may not have been deemed "corny" in 1962. However, with regard to "cornyness", it certainly does not pass the test of time very well.

Gregory Peckerry and J-j-j-jimmy Stewart were great. Peppard was passable. Everyone else, including the narration, was wince inducing.

What the $%*& is a Chinese Downhill?!?

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[–] thbryn 16 years ago

It was a different time: and films were different as well. I'd watch this one again anytime, corny or not. Just to see people like Preston, Wallach, Widmark and especially Carol Baker who was special in this film.

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[–] BoMar5353 16 years ago

It's great to have some "snapshots in time" of some really great actors that aren't with us anymore and haven't been replaced.

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[–] hollyvolley 16 years ago

I wonder if the shot of Fonda shooting the buffalo would've looked different in Cinerama- I had the impression that it was intentionally supposed to look like a REAL buffalo wasn't being shot- and the one that dropped appeared to be a one dimensional "Ed Wood" prop-

Perhaps it was meant to appease animal rights groups, but at that point I said vocally to myself "Well, I'd shoot one, wood you?" Disgusting creatures, and dangerous! And look how many they had to stampede back in 1962!

The only problem I have with the film is that the segments aren't comprehensive enough. Obviously, it's already long, but a pre=planned sequel or two could've really given each segment, and the characters more scope.

We didn't get to see any of the life that Carol Baker and Mountain man Jimmy Stewart had. It would've made the basic story elements stronger and more emotional.

Also- has this been discussed here?- My DVD seems to be missing a sequence perhaps. Was the Peppard character ever seen engaged with the conflict with Gant, before he arrived then in Arizona? It seemed as if a segment was missing. And then there is that group of horsemen who pass the Peppard carriage on the trailer, and not in the film.

I love this movie, and it stirs something ancient within me- maybe because I first saw ir when I was eight, and I love the shots of Glendale and the bay. (Oh look, the harp shop is off that exit!) And I've lived out in the desert and traveled a lot of the land. The music is great.

The morality play becomes the real world dance, without the morality

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[–] brackenhe 16 years ago

I'm old enough to have seen this when it first came out, but no Cinerama in my home town. I never saw this film until about 10 years ago. I have to agree that it's not the best Western ever. It's a decent movie but seems to lack cohesiveness. Oh, they tried with Reynolds character but it mostly seems like a bunch of scenes from a bunch of different movies all tied together under the premise of "How the West was Won." Some of the scenes were pretty good and the acting decent for the most part; however, was Reynolds really up to the task? She was a big star then but why pick her as the thread to which the story was tied. It seems more of a "man's" picture, and while Peppard had the biggest part of all the males in the film, was he up to the task, either? Like I've stated, it has it's good parts (lovely scenery, great music) but it could have been much better. There are epics with a main focus on a certain character and they work quite well. This one just doesn't succeed most of the time.

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[–] HijodelCid 14 years ago

The movie critic of the NYT said pretty much the same thing back in 1963: that it was a choppy and uneven collection of scenes that seemed to have been stolen from much better Westerns; Eli Wallach, for ex, basically played the same bandit leader he played in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.

God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)

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[–] Wuchak (8110) 3 years ago

it mostly seems like a bunch of scenes from a bunch of different movies all tied together under the premise of "How the West was Won."

Well, since the story involves 50 years from 1839-1889 that's essentially what it is, using the Prescott/Rawlings family as the linking thread.

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[–] joekiddlouischama 9 years ago

Perhaps it was meant to appease animal rights groups

I don't think that they were very influential in 1962, but shooting an actual buffalo on public land for the sake of a movie would have been uncalled for in my opinion. As it was, we (as a society) nearly hunted North America's largest land mammal out of existence.

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[–] Andrew_S_Hatton 9 years ago

Perhaps it was meant to appease animal rights groups

wrote http://www.imdb.com/user/ur3124352/ in 2007 - I doubt if it was to appease - although there was a well established concern about animal cruelty by then - the forerunner of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_for_the_Prevention_of_Cruelty_to_Animals#History

having been formed in the UK before the start of the events we are shown in the film.

However I am not sure there was much awareness of "Animal Rights" in the early 1960s and note that a "Time-line of Animal Rights" given by one website - which does not allow me to link to the actual article - does not even start until 1975 - which 'feels' about right to me

http://animalrights.about.com/od/animalrights101/a/TimelineModern.html - scroll down and clink the link where it reads Timeline of the Modern Animal Rights Movement

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[–] gary_w_trott 8 years ago

I was a couple of years older than you when my parents took us to the CINERAMA to see it and I don't remember anything with Gant up to the time that he got off the train. I've always loved the movie as well and the ending is one of the most inspirational that I have ever seen on film.

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[–] Andrew_S_Hatton 9 years ago

However, with regard to "cornyness", it certainly does not pass the test of time very well.

said http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1446394/ back in 2008 & from a straight entertainment point of view that is probably even truer today after another seven years of technological advancement & human understanding of our history.

However, to some extent, as a person keen on nostalgia, especially for the era of my youth (born in 1948) I often find that productions routed in their age are some of the best because they can give some awareness about how things were done back then.

Obviously one also has to take into consideration that we are looking back on work of half a century ago, which itself is portraying events of, at the start of the Movie, over a hundred years earlier.

To my mind that makes it a fascinating intellectual exercise - as it also is now considering the opinions of viewers in years gone by!

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[–] gamertrav 8 years ago

I'd rather just watch other movies with those actors that are better than this. It's not like they aren't available. You can find almost any movie on dvd/bluray/streaming these days.

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[–] joekiddlouischama 9 years ago

Gregory Peckerry and J-j-j-jimmy Stewart were great. Peppard was passable. Everyone else, including the narration, was wince inducing.

I don't know; I would argue that Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Lee J. Cobb, and Eli Wallach were better ...

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[–] hizherz 14 years ago

You're corny.

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] arbilab 10 years ago

You're aware, right?, that you're insulting a 3 1/2yo post.

_______________________
Guacamole in my choos

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[–] joe_538 10 years ago

Watch the whole movie before you critique. They let you get to know the characters in a natural way in the first few minutes so you can care about what happens to them later on. They didn't change the camera setup much because it was originally presented on a large, curved screen that would give the audience the impression of being there. A lot of the tracking shots also reflect this, and it's still pretty darn effective when viewed the right way.

Thank God they didn't use shaky-cam and lens flares in `62!

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[–] jondoe888 10 years ago

This movie was about scope. It covered a LOT of time and territory. It was little more than some vignettes, pieced together. You can have scope, or you can have one story line. Or, a 12hr movie! I liked it. You want a cohesive story line - there are other movies.

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[–] dollvalley 9 years ago

I just watched the movie for the first time. I was afraid I would not be able to sit through it because of knowing that with Cinerama a waist show was the closest they could do, and because originally the alignment of the actors acting space was designed to work on the curved screen. However I did read in the restoration notes that they fixed the second issue with the late 00s dvd/bluray edition.
I lost all concern for close shots within 15 minutes, thanks to the breathtaking photography.

This is definitely a great movie! Try to sit through longer and you will be rewarded. Also, don't know how many movies you've seen, but with many movies, especially the longer ones, the first minutes are always a bit tiresome because they set the story and it pays if you pay attention to the details.

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[–] joekiddlouischama 9 years ago

I lost all concern for close shots within 15 minutes, thanks to the breathtaking photography.

I concur, except that I lost all concern for closeups immediately; this movie offers a different kind of experience. Now, for a very standard wide-screen film such as The Kentuckian (1955), directed by and starring Burt Lancaster, the static camera and lack of closeups constitutes a major problem.

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[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

I avoided this cornball "epic" for decades (and I'm a classic movie fan). Absolutely unbearable. Stewart and Peck
are beyond breakfast-cereal corny.

The film is a mess. Too long, too many characters and actors who portray them (several who are laughably miscast).

Oddly, it's Reynolds who shines through. At 29, and still beautiful, she has the most intriguing character, but this
pompous disaster is only interested in cramming as many poorly-cast stars into a single film as possible. To say
this overlong pile of doo is uneven is putting it mildly.

For years, the likes of Ron Howard (who, shamefully, calls this cluster of dung as among his favorites) bemoaned
the pan-and-scan, visually truncated TV versions as blasphemous. Like it matters. Whatever the aspect ratio, a
bad movie is a bad movie.

I have never seen Gregory Peck or James Stewart this AWFUL.

Recommended only for those who suffer from INSOMNIA.

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] 9 years ago

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