Movie review - "How the West Was Won" (1962) ***1/2

After the departure of Dore Schary in 1957, MGM was ruled by Joe Vogel and Sol Siegel for the next five years or so. The influential film of their regime was Ben Hur, a massive hit which caused them to think the solution to the studio's problems was big budget remakes of earlier successes, leading to Cimarron, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and their Waterloo, Mutiny on the Bounty - but they had a lot of successes, too, notably North by Northwest, Time Machine and this one, a massive epic in Cinerama, a huge screen technique now gone but ripe for revival, I think (it lives on in the form of Imax). This must have looked terrific on a large scene, with several epic action sequences - a trip down the rapids, buffalo stampede, shoot out on a train. But its great strength is that writer James Lee Barrett never loses sight of the human element. Its not terrifically interesting but it is always to the fore.

The first half is split into two halves: one about James Stewart falling in love with Carroll Baker along the rivers (with some river pirates as very effective villains - we don't often see river pirates in Westerns); the second about Debbie Reynolds falling in love with Gregory Peck. The second half centres around George Peppard, who was a bit of a fave of the Vogel-Siegel regime, coming off Home from the Hill, and it's a big responsibility but what do you know he carries the film very well, believably growing from callow youth to respected elder - it's in three sections, one about the Civil War, one about Indians and the railway, the final one about bandits (in the form of Eli Wallach). Peppard doesn't get a romance subplot (apparently there was one with Hope Lange which was cut - instead Carolyn Jones just appears as his wife) but has more than enough to do.

James Stewart is a bit too old for Carrol Baker, who was stuck with a number of older leading men at this phase of her career; I've got a lot of time for Baker, she was sexy with a distinctive voice and on screen magnetism, and works well here; she seems a lot more natural than Debbie Reynolds who is professional as always but maybe a bit too mechanical (and not 100% believable as a woman just interested in money - maybe she and Baker should have swapped roles, but then I don't think Baker could sing and dance and Reynold's role required it). Gregory Peck is fun as a gambler, as is Wallach as a villain and Richard Widmark as a ruthless railroad man. The music score is a deserved classic.