'How the West Was Won'

Last night I finally got to finish watching the 1962 film 'How the West Was Won'. I received this movie on Blu-Ray for my birthday and have watched it in 3 increments, just because I always had to do something else besides watch the movie. Anyways.... 'How the West Was Won' is the family saga that covers decades of the families life. The film includes Westward expansion in the nineteenth century--including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of the railroads. It has an all star cast including Carroll Baker, Walter Brennan, Lee J. Cobb, Andy Devine, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Harry Morgan, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, and Richard Widmark. The film is narrated by Spencer Tracy.

But the truly captivating part of this movie is how is was filmed. The film was shot with 3 cameras along side each other ( three-strip Cinerama process). Then in editing the 3 cameras shots were put together to form a SMILEBOX effect (very similar to a fish eye lens) :

WIDESCREEN:



SMILEBOX:


(Google: How the West Was Won Smilebox: For HD photos)


The film was mostly shot with stationary shots, because of the difficulty of moving the cameras in sink. But the film opens and closes with gorgeous cinematic helicopter shots. This makes me really want to watch this movie in the screening room. It would be amazing.


You can read up allot more about the cinematic process. For instance because of the way John Ford wanted to film it had to be shot with the actors artificially positioned out of dramatic and emotional frame, and out of synchronization with one another.

Anyways I recommend you guys check this out. You could borrow it from me, also I have the standard widescreen version if you aren't interested in the SMILEBOX format.

Original:



Restored: