How the West Was Won is a 1962 American epic Western film directed by Henry Hathaway (who directs three out of the five chapters involving the same family), John Ford and George Marshall, produced by Bernard Smith, written by James R. Webb, and narrated by Spencer Tracy. Originally filmed in true three-lens Cinerama with the according three-panel panorama projected onto an enormous curved screen, the film features an ensemble cast formed by many cinema icons and newcomers, including (in alphabetical order) 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 supporting cast features Brigid Bazlen, Walter Brennan, David Brian, Ken Curtis, Andy Devine, Jack Lambert, Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan as Ulysses S. Grant, Thelma Ritter, Mickey Shaughnessy, Harry Dean Stanton, Russ Tamblyn and Lee Van Cleef.
How the West Was Won is widely considered one of Hollywood's greatest epics. The film received widespread critical acclaim and was a box office success, grossing $50 million on a budget of $15 million. At the 36th Academy Awards it earned eight nominations, including Best Picture, and won three, for Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Best Sound and Best Film Editing. In 1997 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
The Rivers (1839)
Zebulon Prescott and his family set out west for the frontier on the Erie Canal. They are pulled through the first section on a barge and then build rafts to continue on the Ohio River. Along the journey, they meet mountain man Linus Rawlings, who is traveling east, to Pittsburgh, to trade his furs. Rawlings and Zebulon's daughter, Eve, are attracted to each other, but he is not ready to settle down.
Rawlings stops at an isolated trading post, advertised as a "likker" store near the river. It is actually a front run by a clan of river pirates, headed by "Alabama Colonel" Jeb Hawkins. Acting in a seducing fashion, Jeb's daughter Dora Hawkins leads Linus into a cave, stabs him in the back and pushes him into a hole. The pirates then steal his furs and sink his canoe. Wounded, Rawlings follows them. When they are about to rob the Prescott party, Linus interferes. Aided by the Prescotts, he kills all of the pirates.
The settlers then continue down the river. When the lead raft is caught in rapids, Zebulon and his wife Rebecca drown. Linus encounters the survivors. Deciding he cannot live without Eve, he asks to marry her and take her to Pittsburgh. However, she insists on homesteading at the spot where her parents died.
The Plains (1851)
The wagon train is attacked by Cheyenne warriors.
Eve's sister Lilith chooses to go back East, and years later finds herself touring in St. Louis. While performing at the Music hall, she attracts the attention of professional gambler Cleve Van Valen. She later inherits a California gold mine. Cleve joins the wagon train taking her there and avoids paying debts in the process. Wagonmaster Roger Morgan and Cleve court her along the way, but she rejects them both.
Surviving an attack by Cheyennes, Lilith and Cleve arrive at the mine, only to find that it is worked out and worthless. Cleve leaves. Lilith returns to work in a camp town's dance hall, living out of a covered wagon. Morgan finds her and again proposes marriage, to no avail.
Later, Lilith sings on a riverboat. By chance, Cleve is a passenger. After hearing Lilith's voice, he leaves the poker table (and a winning hand), tells her he does not care that she is poor and proposes to her. He tells her of the business opportunities waiting in San Francisco. She accepts his proposal.
The Civil War (1861–1865)
American Civil War
Linus Rawlings has joined the Union army as a captain in the American Civil War. Despite Eve's wishes, their son Zeb enlists as well, looking for glory and an escape from farming. The bloody Battle of Shiloh shows Zeb that war is nothing like he imagined, and his father dies there. Zeb encounters a disillusioned Confederate who suggests deserting.
By chance, they bump into Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. The Confederate 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. Afterward, Zeb rejoins the army. Over the course of the war, he earns a battlefield commission.
When the war ends, he returns home as a lieutenant and learns his mother died, having lost the will to live after losing Linus. Zeb renounces his share of the family farm and leaves, wanting a different life.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_West_Was_Won_(film)
