That was the wild west

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Movie
German title That was the wild west
Original title How the West Was Won
Country of production United States
original language English , Arapaho
Publishing year 1962
length 162 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director John Ford ,
Henry Hathaway ,
George Marshall .
Richard Thorpe (anonymous)
script John Gay (anonymous),
James R. Webb , based
on a novel by Louis L'Amour
production Bernard Smith ,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ,
Cinerama
music Alfred Newman
camera William H. Daniels ,
Milton R. Krasner ,
Charles Lang ,
Joseph LaShelle
cut Harold F. Kress
occupation

This was the Wild West (Original title: How the West Was Won ) is an American western written by Henry Hathaway , John Ford and George Marshall from 1962.

action

The River (1830s)

The trapper Linus Rawlings returns to civilization to trade in fur. He encounters a group of settlers who want to move west via the recently opened Erie Canal and are led by Zebulon Prescott. His daughter Eve feels drawn to Linus, but he is not ready to settle down and moves on.

Linus stops at an isolated trading post run by a group of bandits led by "Colonel" Hawkins. The trapper realizes too late that not everything is what it seems. Colonel Hawkins' daughter pretends to lead him into a deep tunnel, stabs him in the back with a knife and pushes him into a pit. The gang rob Linus' boat and wait for more victims. Fortunately, he can only save himself slightly injured and save the Prescott Group from a similar fate. The ambushing thieves are dealt with in raw justice.

The settlers go down the river but turn into the wrong arm of the river. As a result, their raft gets caught in rapids and strong white water, with Zebulon and his wife Rebecca drowning. When Linus finds out that the settlers have chosen the wrong path and that he cannot live without Eve, he returns and marries her. He gives up his freedom and settles with her in the place where her parents died. There they set up a farm because Eve never wants to leave this place again.

The covered wagon (1840s)

Eve's sister Lily decides to go to St. Louis , where she finds work as a dancer in a nightclub . There it attracts the attention of professional player Cleve Van Valen. After learning that she recently inherited a California gold mine (and to avoid having to pay his debts), he joins a trek to take her there. He and the trek master Roger Morgan vie for her favor all the way, but she rejects them both, which causes consternation in her new friend and fellow traveler Agatha Clegg.

After surviving an attack by the Arapaho , Lily and Cleve arrive at the mine, only to find out afterwards that it is now worthless. Cleve then leaves Lily, whereupon she finds a job again in a nightclub in a literal "tent city" where she lives in a covered wagon. She meets Morgan again, and he suggests her marrying in a rather unromantic way, to which she replies with "No, never".

Lily later sings in a music salon on a barge . Meanwhile, Cleve has invested the profits it made in railroads and other businesses in California. He happens to be a passenger on the ship. Upon hearing Lily's distinctive voice, he leaves his poker game to find her. He proposes to her, she accepts, and they settle in fast-growing San Francisco .

The Civil War (1861-1865)

Eve lost her husband Linus Rawlings in the Civil War . It is shown briefly how the surgeon in the hospital explains his death. Regardless of their wishes, their son Zeb also joins the Union army . The bloody battle of Shiloh shows him that war is not what he imagined. He encountered a Confederate soldier who is just as disillusioned and Zeb desertion suggests what Zeb has also been considered.

By chance they overhear a confidential conversation between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman . The rebel realizes that he has the opportunity to rid the south of two of his greatest enemies and tries to shoot them. That leaves Zeb with no choice but to kill him. Then Zeb rejoins his regiment .

He returns home at the end of the war. The first thing he sees there is his mother's grave. His brother explains to him that her mother, after learning of the death of her beloved husband Linus, and that she lost her courage to face life, also died. Zeb replies that he only returned home because of his mother and that nothing else binds him here. He gives his part of the farm to his brother and travels west to lead a more active life.

The railroad (1860s)

Following the daring riders of the Pony Express and the transcontinental telegraph line, the two competing railway lines, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad , bring new settlers to the territory.

Zeb Rawlings becomes a lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry . He tries to keep peace with the Indians with the help of the buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart, an old friend of Linus. When the unscrupulous railroad worker Mike King violates a contract by building on Indian territory, the Sioux Indians take revenge by chasing a large herd of buffalo through his camp. Outraged, Zeb gives up and moves to Arizona .

The Desperados (1880s)

In San Francisco, the widowed Lily is auctioning the property of her husband Cleve, who was a railroad manager, to pay off the debt. She decides to move to Arizona in the hope that Zeb Rawlings and his family will help her take over the remaining property, a ranch.

Lily finds her nephew Zeb (now a Marshal ), his wife Julie, and their children in the West. With the help of the marshal Lou Ramsey, Zeb repels the attack on a railroad train by his old enemy Charlie Gant and his gang. Eventually, Lily and the Rawlings travel to their new home.

background

Producer Bernard Smith made the film for MGM and Cinerama. Both production companies agreed to shoot a feature film in three-strip Cinerama format for the first time. The film came to the cinemas after Die Wunderwelt der Gebrüder Grimm . Since the 2.65: 1 Cinerama format was only intended for deeply curved screens, the earlier 35 mm TV version showed spherically distorted edges and only a fraction of the actual film image. The joints between the three film strips were clearly visible. These errors have been largely corrected in the Blu-ray release, which corresponds to today's television version.

Several directors were involved in the film. Henry Hathaway ("The River" / "The Covered Wagon" / "The Desperados") filmed three episodes, while John Ford ("The Civil War") and George Marshall ("The Railroad") were responsible for one episode each. Richard Thorpe , who was not mentioned, recorded the transition scenes between episodes. The film contains a short sequence taken from the 1952 documentary That Is Cinerama , as well as scenes from The Land of the Rain Tree and the Alamo . For some settings and rear projections, Ultra Panavision was used.

German versions

There are two German versions of the film regarding the songs.

In the version most shown today, which was also released on DVD & Blu-ray, the songs in the film are included in the original sound (English).

There is also a second version that ran on ZDF in the 80s. The songs have been Germanized with her. For example, the song "A Home in the Meadow" that Debbie Reynolds sings at the beginning of the film is "I'll build you a house in the meadow".

Reviews

" Extra-long star film, which - inspired by a series of articles in Life magazine - tells the development of the American West from the first treks to the first railroad 1840–1890", wrote the lexicon of international films . The film offers "[d] anchoring the captivating entertainment, especially in the civil war episode staged by Ford, which was intelligently used by the technical possibilities of the Cinerama process".

For Prisma , the film was “a colorful and large-scale Cinerama Western with a star cast, which despite its length is a pleasure”. The civil war episode was the best: "Grandmaster John Ford also shows an impressive conversation about the sense and nonsense of war between Generals Sherman (John Wayne) and Grant (Harry Morgan) on the battlefield of Shiloh."

Awards

At the 1964 Academy Awards , the film won a total of three categories and was nominated five more times:

The film was entered into the National Film Registry in 1997 .

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ That was the Wild West. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ That was the Wild West on prisma.de