How The West Was Won (1962)

My feeling is that the first half of it is actually quite good, and the second half - after the civil war - less so. This is partly because it becomes slightly disjointed, with less continuity with the original characters, and partly because the character of Zeb Rawlins is not particularly interesting after the civil war part, seeming to jump around between occupations for the whims of the plot. 1 offers some insight into this slight loss of continuity. One slight complaint about the first half is that some of the songs they put in seem a bit forced (i.e. the music hall bits work OK, because they make sense, but when the father says "girls, why don't you sing something?" you just cringe). There's (fortunately) very little singling in the second half.

In terms of the characters: James Stewart works well, I think. The two main women are also good, although the make-up to make them look older later in the film was possibly a bit "generous", and not entirely convincing. Henry Fonda seems slightly out of place to me, or possibly saddled with a ridiculous (although probably historically quite restrained) moustache. John Wayne doesn't have much to do, but seems suitable for his small part. Gregory Peck's medium: there's nothing to complain about but I'm not entirely convinced. George Peppard as Zeb Rawlins seems slightly non-descript. Richard Widmark's always good at that kind of semi-villianous role, and for the spaghetti western fan Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach make (small and medium) appearances.

In conclusion, it's not bad, but probably more of interest as a novelty than as a genuinely good film.

The modern DVD version is very good. There's a few scenes (mostly action) that look a bit fuzzier; probably the ones where they didn't use the full three cameras, and there's some distortion visible across the joins, but this is probably unavoidable.