How the West was Won (1962)

How the West Was Won tells the story of a family on the east coast heading west for the Pacific over four generations and fifty years. Along the way the characters encounter challenges like the Civil War, transcontinental railroad, etc. That's about it. The plot is okay at times, but rather dull quite often.

As for the acting, I don't know where to begin. This is probably the most star-studded movie ever made. The film stars people such as James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, John Wayne, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Debbie Reynolds, Carroll Baker, and quite a few others. For good measure the film is narrated by Spencer Tracy. Even though the film is reasonably long, there are so many characters that none of them have roles that are all that significant. John Wayne for example only has about two minutes of screen time. Despite having so many extraordinary actors, none of them did a whole lot in this film. Perhaps they didn't really get a chance with such small parts, but I don't think a single one of them delivered a memorable performance.

Overall, this film isn't that good. While the sheer number of big-name stars suggests that the film might be good, there are just too many of them for this film to do much of anything. At about two and a half hours, the film probably isn't long enough to follow a four generations of a family and consist of five completely separate parts. The film is worth checking out due to the novelty of it (in addition to all the actors, it's one of just two fictional films ever shot using the Cinerama widescreen process), but it's far from spectacular.

62/100
D-

UP NEXT: Probably another western.

thats a bad score... guess im nto gonna watch that