A family saga covering several decades of Westward expansion in the nineteenth century - including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of the railroads.
In 1836, a small band of soldiers sacrifice their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.
Director:
John Wayne
Stars:
John Wayne,
Richard Widmark,
Laurence Harvey
Captain Nathan Brittles, on the eve of retirement, takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack. Encumbered by women who must be evacuated, Brittles finds his mission imperiled.
The Cheyenne, tired of broken U.S. government promises, head for their ancestral lands but a sympathetic cavalry officer is tasked to bring them back to their reservation.
Director:
John Ford
Stars:
Richard Widmark,
Carroll Baker,
Karl Malden
A cavalry officer posted on the Rio Grande must deal with murderous raiding Apaches, his son who's a risk-taking recruit and his wife from whom he has been separated for many years.
At Fort Apache, an honorable and veteran war captain finds conflict when his regime is placed under the command of a young, glory hungry lieutenant colonel with no respect for the local Indian tribe.
In 1863, a Union outfit is sent behind Confederate lines in Mississippi to destroy enemy railroads but a captive southern belle and the unit's doctor cause frictions within ranks.
Director:
John Ford
Stars:
John Wayne,
William Holden,
Constance Towers
Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.
A corrupt marshal is pressured by his army friend into negotiating the release of white captives of the Comanches, but finds that their reintegration into society has its consequences.
Director:
John Ford
Stars:
James Stewart,
Richard Widmark,
Shirley Jones
Setting off on a journey to the west in the 1830s, the Prescott family run into a man named Linus, who helps them fight off a pack of thieves. Linus then marries daughter Eve Prescott (Carroll Baker), and 30 years later goes off to fight in the Civil War with their son, with bloody results. Eve's sister, Lily, heads farther west and has adventures with a professional gambler, stretching all the way to San Francisco and into the 1880s. Written by
Jwelch5742
Ma and Pa Prescott are buried on the bank of the river in which they drowned. When Eve visits her parent's graves decades later, there is no sign of a river anywhere near the farm. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator:
[as the camera pans over the Rocky Mountains]
This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But, the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.
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Crazy Credits
Opening credits: Except for historical events and characters, the events and characters depicted in this photoplay are fictitious and any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. See more »
In the early 1960s Hollywood found itself under attack by television so had to wheel out some big guns . THE LONGEST DAY and HOW THE WEST WAS WON were a couple of these howitzers . Film,s that lasted several hours full of episodic structure with big names playing the characters . Watching these type of movies years later you can see the thinking behind them but do seem overblown with hindsight and you can also see why film makers wanted to make more intense movies via New Hollywood in the 1970s
That said HTWWW is by no means a bad movie . If there's a problem with it it's the narrative problem of trying to squeeze 100 years of history in to three hours of cinema and to a large degree the film succeeds to a large extent . It also deserves some credit for using Debbie Reynolds and George Peppard - neither of whom were the biggest names in the movie - to play the main linking characters
And yet the problem of the narrative is impossible to overcome entirely successfully . The story remains episodic and has every cliché under the sun . Men are men and women are thankful . White men tend to be extremely good or extremely bad and the indigenous population are noble savages who become mere savages when white man speak with forked tongue . There's also the annoying production value of people standing in front of back projection which jars with the numerous establishing shots taken on location. It's also a conservative film with God frequently getting a name check
But for the most part it's an entertaining Western even for those of us who don't like the genre . Perhaps the reason it does work is because it's so traditional where the world is portrayed in black and white , a world that has never existed in the first place
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In the early 1960s Hollywood found itself under attack by television so had to wheel out some big guns . THE LONGEST DAY and HOW THE WEST WAS WON were a couple of these howitzers . Film,s that lasted several hours full of episodic structure with big names playing the characters . Watching these type of movies years later you can see the thinking behind them but do seem overblown with hindsight and you can also see why film makers wanted to make more intense movies via New Hollywood in the 1970s
That said HTWWW is by no means a bad movie . If there's a problem with it it's the narrative problem of trying to squeeze 100 years of history in to three hours of cinema and to a large degree the film succeeds to a large extent . It also deserves some credit for using Debbie Reynolds and George Peppard - neither of whom were the biggest names in the movie - to play the main linking characters
And yet the problem of the narrative is impossible to overcome entirely successfully . The story remains episodic and has every cliché under the sun . Men are men and women are thankful . White men tend to be extremely good or extremely bad and the indigenous population are noble savages who become mere savages when white man speak with forked tongue . There's also the annoying production value of people standing in front of back projection which jars with the numerous establishing shots taken on location. It's also a conservative film with God frequently getting a name check
But for the most part it's an entertaining Western even for those of us who don't like the genre . Perhaps the reason it does work is because it's so traditional where the world is portrayed in black and white , a world that has never existed in the first place