How the West Was Won 3xDVD 1962 A Vadnyugat hőskora - Triplalemezes extra változat / Directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, Richard Thorpe / Starring: Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck

UPC 5996514003789

REGION 2 PAL DVD

MADE IN HUNGARY

AUDIO: English 5.1, Hungarian mono, German 5.1, Spanish 5.1

SUBTITLES: Hungarian, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, English HOH

Total Runtime: 158 minutes

DISCS 1 & 2: FEAUTURE FILM

DISC 3: EXTRA DOCUMENTARY - CINERAMA-ADVENTURE

English Summary:

How the West Was Won is a 1962 American Metrocolor epic-western film.^[4] The picture was one of the last "old-fashioned" epic films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to enjoy great success. The all-star cast includes Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, and Richard Widmark. 

The film begins with narration by Spencer Tracy as the aerial-borne camera sweeps over the Rocky Mountains. "This land has a name today," says Tracy in the opening lines of the film, "and is marked on maps."

The film then moves into "The Rivers" sequence (considerably to the east of the Rockies).

The Rivers (1839)

Mountain man Linus Rawlings (Stewart) is making his way by horse and waterway through the mountains. He confers with a group of Indians. The scene then shifts to Zebulon Prescott and his family.

Prescott (Malden) and his family set out west for the frontier via the Erie Canal, the "West", at this time, being the Ohio River country, at the southern edge of Illinois. Along the journey, they meet Rawlings, who is traveling east, to Pittsburgh, to trade his furs. Rawlings and Zebulon's daughter, Eve (Carroll Baker), are attracted to each other, but Linus is not ready to settle down.

Linus Rawlings stops at an isolated trading post, run by a murderous clan of river pirates, headed by "Alabama Colonel" Jeb Hawkins (Walter Brennan). Linus is betrayed when he accompanies Jeb's seductive daughter Dora Hawkins (Brigid Bazlen) into a cave, modeled after a real outlaw haunt, now a part of Cave-in-Rock State Park, to see a "varmint". Dora Hawkins stabs him in the back and Rawlings falls into a deep hole. He is not seriously wounded, and he rescues the Prescott party from a similar fate. The bushwhacking thieves (Lee Van Cleef plays one), including Dora Hawkins, are dispatched, being killed in an attack by Rawlings, in a form of rough frontier justice.

After Zebulon prays to God for their lost loved ones and commends to Him the thieves' souls "whether You want 'em or not", the settlers continue down the river, but their raft is caught in rapids, and Zebulon and his wife Rebecca (Agnes Moorehead) drown. Linus, finding that he cannot live without Eve, reappears and marries her. She insists on homesteading at the spot where her parents died.

This section was directed by Henry Hathaway.

The Plains (1851)

Eve's sister Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) chose to go back East but after some years finds herself touring in St. Louis, where she and her troupe are hired to perform trendy acts at the Music hall. She attracts the attention of professional gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck). After overhearing that she has just inherited a California gold mine, and to avoid paying his debts to another gambler (John Larch), Cleve joins the wagon train taking her there. Wagonmaster Roger Morgan (Robert Preston) and he court her along the way, but she rejects them both, much to the dismay of her new friend and fellow traveler Agatha Clegg (Thelma Ritter), who is searching for a husband.

Surviving an attack by Cheyennes, Lilith and Cleve arrive at the mine, only to find that it is worthless. Cleve leaves. Lilith returns to work in a dance hall in a camp town, living out of a covered wagon. Morgan finds her and again proposes marriage unromantically. She tells him, "Not now, not ever."

Later, Lilith is singing in the music salon of a riverboat. By chance, Cleve is a passenger. When he hears Lilith's voice, he leaves the poker table (and a winning hand) to propose to her. He tells her of the opportunities waiting in the rapidly growing city of San Francisco. She accepts his proposal.

This section also was directed by Henry Hathaway.

The Civil War (1861–1865)

Linus Rawlings joins the Union army as a captain in the American Civil War. Despite Eve's wishes, their son Zeb (Peppard) eagerly enlists as well, looking for glory and an escape from farming. Corporal Peterson (Andy Devine) assures them the conflict will not last very long. The bloody Battle of Shiloh shows Zeb that war is nothing like he imagined, and unknown to him, his father dies there. Zeb encounters a similarly disillusioned Confederate (Russ Tamblyn), who suggests deserting.

By chance, they overhear a private conversation between Generals Ulysses S. Grant (Harry Morgan) and William Tecumseh Sherman (Wayne). The rebel realizes he has the opportunity to rid the South of two of its greatest enemies and tries to shoot them, leaving Zeb no choice but to kill him with the bayonet from his shattered musket. Afterward, Zeb rejoins the army.

When the war finally ends, Zeb returns home as a lieutenant, only to find his mother has died. She had lost the will to live after learning that Linus had been killed. Zeb gives his share of the family farm to his brother, who is content to be a farmer, and leaves in search of a more interesting life.

This section was directed by John Ford.

The Railroad (1868)

Following the daring riders from the Pony Express and the construction of the transcontinental telegraph line in the late 1860s, two ferociously competing railroad lines, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad, one building westward and the other eastward, open up new territory to eager settlers.

Zeb becomes a lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry, trying to maintain peace with the Indians with the help of grizzled buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart (Fonda), an old friend of Linus'. When ruthless railroad man Mike King (Widmark) violates a treaty by building on Indian territory, the Arapahos retaliate by stampeding buffalo through his camp, killing many, including women and children. Disgusted, Zeb resigns and heads to Arizona.

A subplot was cut featuring Hope Lange as Stuart's daughter, Julie, who becomes involved in a love triangle with Zeb and King; she ultimately marries and abandons Zeb.^[5][6]

This section was directed by George Marshall.

The Outlaws (1889)

In San Francisco, widowed Lilith auctions off her possessions (Cleve and she had made and spent several fortunes) to pay her debts. She travels to Arizona, inviting Zeb and his family to oversee her remaining asset, a ranch.

Zeb (now a marshal), his wife Julie (Carolyn Jones), and their children meet Lilith at Gold City's train station. However, Zeb also runs into an old enemy there, outlaw Charlie Gant (Wallach). Zeb had killed Gant's brother in a gunfight. When Gant makes veiled threats against Zeb and his family, Zeb turns to his friend and Gold City's marshal, Lou Ramsey (Lee J. Cobb), but Gant is not wanted for anything in that territory, so Ramsey can do nothing.

Zeb decides he has to act rather than wait for Gant to make good his threat someday. Suspecting Gant of planning to rob an unusually large gold shipment being transported by train, he prepares an ambush with Ramsey's reluctant help. Gant and his entire gang (one member played by Harry Dean Stanton) are killed in the shootout and resulting train wreck. In the end, Lilith and the Rawlings family travel to their new home.

This section also was directed by Henry Hathaway.

Epilogue

The west that was won by its pioneers, settlers, adventurers is long gone now. Yet it is theirs forever, for they left tracks in history that will never be eroded by wind or rain - never plowed under by tractors, never buried in compost of events. Out of the hard simplicity of their lives, out of their vitality, of their hopes and sorrows grew legends of courage and pride to inspire their children and their children's children. From soil enriched by their blood, out of their fever to explore and be, came lakes where once there were burning deserts - came the goods of the earth; mine and wheat fields, orchards and great lumber mills. All the sinews of a growing country. Out of their rude settlements, their trading posts came cities to rank among the great ones of the world. All the heritage of a people free to dream, free to act, free to mold their own destiny.

— Final Narration of the film by Spencer Tracy

A short epilogue shows how modern America has grown from the West in the early 1960s, which includes footage of the Hoover Dam, the four-level downtown freeway interchange in Los Angeles and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Hungarian Summary:

A monumentális történelmi film a Prescott család nemzedékeinek sorsán keresztül regéli el a vadnyugat történetének főbb fordulópontjait. Zebulon Prescott és családja az 1830-as években indul nyugatnak a nemrég megnyitott Erie-csatornán egy jobb élet, dús termőföldek és határtalan lehetőségek reményében. A család idősebb leánygyermeke, Lilith egyáltalán nem vágyik a telepesek életének vadromantikájára, őt a finom ruhák és a fényűző lokálok vonzzák, így amint teheti, a zenés-táncos színpadon keresi boldogulását, ahol egy jóképű szerencsejátékosnak hamar megakad rajta a szeme. Lilith húga, Eve egy prémvadász felesége lesz, akivel farmot épít, és gazdálkodni kezdenek. Az ő egyik fiúk, Zeb viszi tovább a történet fonalát, aki az északi seregben harcol a polgárháborúban, majd a nagy nyugati vasútépítésnél igyekszik fenntartani a békét az indiánokkal, később pedig egy határvidéki városban a banditák elleni harcból is kiveszi a részét.

Cast / Szereplők: