A Few Words About A few words about...™ How the West Was Won -- in Blu-ray (2 Viewers)

[Cees Alons]

This one and the new Godfather trilogy made me decide not to wait any longer.
I'm getting the Panasonic DMP-BD50 - and I'm not even waiting for the newer BD55 model!


Cees

 

[Robert George]

The documentary by David Strohmaier on disc one is very, very good. Easily one of the best docs I have seen on a home video release. From a historical filmmaking perspective, perhaps even worth the price of this Blu-ray by itself. I began watching the documentary last night and was immediately engaged in the subject. Didn't stop until it was finished.

 

[Brian Borst]

DVDBeaver has posted some caps comparing the regular and the SmileBox version. And boy, do they look amazing! Absolutely gorgeous.

 

[ScottR]

So is the Smilebox version supposed to be slightly cropped from the standard version? I read the above post but am still confused.

 

[Brian Borst]

Cinerama has an aspect ratio of 2.59:1, and the three panels (which each would have an aspect ratio of 1.33:1) have an aspect ratio that's 2.89:1. This would be the first time you'd see every bit of information, but the SmileBox version still has the correct intended aspect ratio.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Neither of the two Costcos around Boise stocked this title, either in SD-DVD or BRD. I had to go over to BB myself.

I've only got a 720p DLP projector so consider the source....but this smilebox BRD appeared to have full resolution up to that of the projector itself. By which I mean to say that I doubt any video version could have any more resolution which I could see. On my 110" screen the smilebox presentation was stupendous.

I hadn't seen the film since the original release, which took place when I was 11 years old. All I remember from that experience was that the film had too little action and too much boy-girl "mush". I avoided the previous video incarnations for the obvious reasons (poor quality). Now with 40+ years of age added I've really seen this film for the first time.

The plot line reminded me so much of my own family history. My part-Scot part-Blackfoot Nation grandfather running away from home in Missouri to become a restauranteur in 1910 Seattle and later San Jose. My great-great grandmother taking the Oregon/California trail in 1862 and later founding the town of Live Oak CA (I still have her Colt model 1851 revolver). My great-grandfather, born in Lyme Regis England, posting as an MD to the missions in Korea before settling in San Francisco in the 1890s. Newcomers (post WWII immigrants to the West) don't have this kind of family history and don't have the gut-level personal appreciation of how the West was won. The film used as its thread the family history of the Prescott family and this plot device will certainly resonate with people whose families lived the same kinds of experiences.

Plot hole: in the river sequence, someone cries out "we must have took the wrong fork!" Hate to say this, but rivers fork upstream and not downstream.

Unintentionally funny moment: the Robert Preston character tries to pad his marriage resume by claiming to have "a big ranch in Merced". Owning lots of real estate in Merced nowadays means you are broke: it's the ground zero of the US real estate collapse.

Major annoyance: the epilog showed a montage showing how the West turned out. Why oh why did they take up the bulk of the epilog showing endless LA freeways? This is NOT the pride of the present West.

 

[Robert George]

Maybe not now, but filtered through the sensibilities of 1962, I suspect the then-new freeway system was a pretty big deal. Also, much of the film showed how much difficulty there was moving across the vast expanses of the west. The juxtiposition of a river raft and a modern freeway would be an effective presentation.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I don't know, Obi. It's just that a montage has the capability of quickly showing many different topics. They could have shown tourists laughing going down rapids in rubber rafts, or skiers enjoying the snow-covered mountains, or dude ranch guests playing cowboy. This would have captured the essence of the change in the West: that those things which were once considered hardships are now prized for their entertainment value.

I guess this gets to the central point of what does the word "won" mean in the statement "how the west was won". Does "won" imply "civilizing" the West (i.e. make everything look like New York City), or rather does "won" imply that pioneers' sacrifices made possible living there comfortably and safely enjoying the essential raw nature of the West?

For example, the Winchester 1873 was the "gun that won the west".

But we all know what this meant: it finally gave the whites superior firepower over the Indians. I don't think this is the meaning of the word "won" that the film makers had in mind.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

One of our avid, qualified readers involved with the Cinerama
process asked me to post this regarding the samples posted on
another site...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

One of our avid, qualified readers involved with the Cinerama
process asked me to post this regarding the samples posted on
another site...

 

[Larry Sutliff]

I ordered this and a few other titles via Amazon today. I'm really looking forward to seeing HTWWW in something like its full cinematic glory. This is an exciting release.

 

[Richard Gallagher]

I watched the Smilebox version last night, and was totally blown away. The audio also is outstanding. And I echo the remarks about the Cinerama documentary, it is fantastic!

We haven't seen the Godfather set yet, but right now HTWWW is the frontrunner for Blu-ray disc of the year.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I have to laugh at this point. From my earlier posts you can see
that I was concerned that the smilebox presentation would be "hokey"
as I questioned the importance of including it.

I have to admit that ever since I saw HTWWW in smilebox
format, the marvel of the presentation still resides in my head. I think
about it often and wish that other Cinerama films were presented in
the same manner.

I would think that the larger your display the more effective the smilebox
process will be for the viewer. On a 65" display it was remarkable.
You really find yourself enveloped more into the film -- especially in its
three major action sequences.

I agree that this Blu-ray is now the frontrunner for disc of the year.

 

[Douglas R]

I've just gone Blu and my first disc is HTWWW. I just want to add my praise to the picture quality of the disc which, in a word, is fantastic! The sharpness and smilebox presentation takes me right back to how I saw the film those many years ago on the giant Cineram screen. Thank you Warner Bros!

 

[OliverK]

Welcome to the blue side, Doug !
Although starting out with HTWWW you did not exactly reverve the best for last

 

[Aaron Silverman]

This arrived the other day and I watched a few minutes just to sample the Smilebox. The movie itself, which I've never seen, was quite hokey (at least the first couple of scenes), but the Smilebox was awesome on my 65"! I can handle hokey if it's entertaining, though (in which case it's just "old-fashioned" ). I watched some of the Cinerama doc as well, and loved it.

 

[CraigF]

It is kind of hokey, but is a good reminder of how people thought in that time. There was huge enthusiasm for the future, massive optimism. Things were going well and could only get better. Even the past looked very good, and was prettied up. People were not so much into looking at the ugly stuff...that started not long after. So this is kind of nice as how America viewed itself not long before people got more critically introspective later in the 60s. Basically Disney-ized.

Sure there is plenty of whitewashing in the film that also makes it seem hokey. It may have been "accidental" in it's just the way those who made the decisions viewed history, or intentional in that they wanted to keep it totally upbeat and entertaining, I don't know. The "whitewashing" that bugged me the most, and I have no idea why as I have no historic "allegiance" to any of it, is that no Confederate soldiers (in uniform so you could tell) were shown in the Civil War section during the battle scenes. (I may be wrong here, only watched the BD once, but I think not.) Instead we only see the Yankee soldiers who got injured, to compound the one-sidedness. How the West Was WON is truly about the "winning" IMO. (Sorry about the OT, but this really did bug me, and saying it makes me feel better LOL...)

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I only saw the beginning -- were there any characters who were Confederate soldiers? I mean, was there any particular reason to show them?

 

[CraigF]

^ No, there wasn't a reason I suppose (just a minor character), we all know they must have been there for the battles. It's like they weren't important enough to show or something, like they were excised from history...it just was glaring and quite bothersome to me for an inexplicable reason LOL. Probably just a budget thing in reality. I didn't think the Civil War had a whole lot to do with "winning the West", if anything more like an impediment to it, more to do with maintaining continuity with the characters' story lines.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

That song used in How The West Was Won got me thinking...the Erie Canal couldn't be just 15 miles long. It turns out that was as far as you got in a day pulled by mules.

I'm really confused now about that river segment. The Erie Canal dumps you off in Buffalo. But somehow they got onto a river (never named) where Jimmy Stewart was going "upriver to Pittsburgh". That makes it the Ohio River. How did the Prescotts get from Lake Erie to the Ohio River?