How the West Was Won (Blu-ray Book) (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)A massive, sprawling epic shot in the three camera Cinerama Process popular during the early 60's, "How the West Was Won" spans from 1830 to 1880 covering the history of the westward expansion. Directed by three directors (John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall with a forth Richard Thorpe providing uncredited linking pieces)"How the West Was Won" was produced during the twilight of the western as the most popular type genre.
Warner has done a painstaking job of restoring this classic film and although it isn't perfect, it's an exceptional job that deserves kudos. The film has never looked this good with colors that pop and accurate fleshtones. More important the seams that one could see for the separate cameras aren't quite as glaring as before. The image quality is exceptionally crisp with terrific detail. Audio sounds extremely good with a nice 5.1 mix.
The film is spread over two discs with the original Overture and Alfred Newman's marvelous score included as part of the package. We get a terrific feature length commentary track from "West" stuntman Loren James who provides plenty of background details about the physical shooting of the film, filmmaker David Strohmaier, film scholar Rudy Behlmer, Cierama's John Sittig and music historian Jon Burlingame. My only complaint is that Burlingame will make a comment about listening to Newman's marvelous score and then whomever edited his comments continues to play them right over the music cue we should be listening to without interruption.
The only other complaint that I have is that while the dirt and grit has been removed making the film look marvelous, there's one sequence that has always bugged me--there is a bit of dirt right in the middle of the frame of the opening fly over sequence that I wish they could have figured out how to remove. Other than that, it's pretty smooth looking throughout the presentation despite an occasiona bit of image unsteadiness as characters move across the screen and span of the three cameras lenses.
We also get a terrific hour and a half documentary on the Cinerama process on the third disc.
There are three different versions of the film in re-release: the first is a three disc DVD edition with just the film; the second is the three disc set postcards, a reproduction of the original press book, souvenir book and photos as part of the package;there is no equivalent for this SCE in the Blu-ray edition although it does have a booklet as part of that package.
The image and sound quality in this restored edition improves on the original single disc edition of the film with a terrific commentary track and documentary to round out the set. With a stunning casts (James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Carolyn Jones, Debbie Reynolds, Carol Baker, Lee J. Cobb, George Peppard, John Wayne, Lee Van Cleef, Karl Malden, Agnes Moorehead and others)this was truly one of the last epic, lyrical westerns to be produced in Hollywood. Highly recommended.


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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 ride, 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!

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