How The West Was Won Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Epic!

How the West Was Won is an epic movie in every sense of the word. It tells the story of 4 generations of one American family over some 70 years, structured in 6 segments filmed by 3 directors with the cream of Hollywood's actors.

But it is impossible to discuss the film without commenting on the format. HTWWW is one of only 2 feature films filmed in Cinerama - the world's first widescreen format, using 3 cameras in one unit (the size of a refrigerator) to capture the image, which would then be projected in 3 panels onto a 146 degree curved screen, accompanied by a 7 track stereo soundtrack.

The film is 162 minutes long (complete with overture and intermission music) and comes on 2 discs. The third disc carries the full length documentary Cinerama Adventure - which is worth watching in it's own right. It tells the story of Cinerama and is excellent (although for my money it could be slightly more technical).

Warner's technicians have done a fine job digitally re-mastering the print and removing the joins (and 2 degree overlap) between the 3 panels. Alas this DVD does not consider the distortion that you get showing an image intended for a curved surface on a flat screen - and occasionally you get some strange effects.

This is rectified on the documentary by the use of the Smilebox format, where the image is distorted as though it WAS on a curved screen (the black bars at top and bottom become curves). Bizarrely this works perfectly and all the geometry issues are resolved. It's a shame that the main feature is not treated this way - although I understand the Blu-ray is.

Cinerama’s legacy (apart from anything ending -rama) is widescreen photography itself, and so we are all in its debt.

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[Highly rated reviewer]

all those stars

This was made in the early 1960s,when epic movies full of star names tempted movie fans away from the tv.A cast to die for,with a fine musical score.The film by nature episodic covering 50 years,directed by stalwarts like George Marshall.Henry Hathaway and John Ford.The film follows the fortunes of the Prescott family,making an epic journey over rapids,joining wagon trains,enduring the civil war and its aftermath.This dvd is not the greatest western ever made but it makes up for it with stars like Henry Fonda,Thelma Ritter,Debbie Reynolds,Greg Peck and George Peppard, and in a ruthless role as a railway builder Richard Widmark.One of its pleasures is watching d0r stars like Lee van Cleef and Walter Brennan.This dvd is for those who like westerns and old Hollywood stars.