How the West Was Won
The film begins with narration by Spencer Tracy as the aerial-borne camera sweeps over the Rocky Mountains. "This land has a name today," says Tracy in the opening lines of the film, "and is marked on maps."
We then move into "The Rivers" sequence (considerably to the east of the Rockies).
=== The Rivers (1839) ===
We see mountain man Linus Rawlings (James Stewart) making his way by horse and waterway through the mountains. He confers with a group of Indians. We then move to Zebulon Prescott and his family.
Prescott (Karl Malden) and his family set out west for the frontier via the Erie Canal, the "West", at this time, being the Ohio River country, at the very tip of southern Illinois. Along the journey, they meet Rawlings, who is traveling east, to Pittsburgh, to trade his furs. Rawlings and Zebulon's daughter, Eve (Carroll Baker) are attracted to each other, but Linus is not ready to settle down.
Linus Rawlings stops at an isolated trading post, run by a murderous clan of river pirates, headed by "Alabama Colonel" Jeb Hawkins (Walter Brennan). Linus is betrayed when he accompanies seductive Dora Hawkins (Brigid Bazlen), into a cave, modeled after the real outlaw haunt, of Cave-In-Rock State Park, to see a "varmint". Dora Hawkins stabs him in the back and Rawlings falls into a deep hole. He is not seriously wounded, and is able to rescue the Prescott party from a similar fate. The bushwhacking thieves (Lee Van Cleef plays one), including Dora, are dispatched, being killed in an attack by Rawlings, in a form of rough, frontier justice. Brenna's death is particularly memorable.
After Zebulon prays to God for their lost loved ones and commends to Him the thieves' souls "whether You want 'em or not", the settlers continue down the river, but their raft is caught in rapids and Zebulon and his wife Rebecca, (Agnes Moorehead) drown. Linus, finding that he cannot live without Eve, reappears and marries her. She insists on homesteading, at the spot where her parents died.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.
=== The Plains (1851) ===
Eve's sister Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) chooses to go to St. Louis, where she finds work performing in a dance hall. She attracts the attention of professional gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck). After overhearing that she has just inherited a California gold mine, and to avoid paying his debts to another gambler (John Larch), Cleve joins the wagon train taking her there. He and wagonmaster Roger Morgan (Robert Preston) court her along the way, but she rejects them both, much to the dismay of her new friend and fellow traveler Agatha Clegg (Thelma Ritter), who is searching for a husband.
Surviving an attack by Cheyenne Indians, Lilith and Cleve arrive at the mine, only to find that it is worthless. Cleve leaves. Lilith returns to work in a dance hall in a camp town, living out of a covered wagon. Morgan finds her and again proposes marriage unromantically. She tells him, "Not now, not ever."
Later, Lilith is singing in the music salon of a riverboat. By chance, Cleve is a passenger. When he hears Lilith's voice, he leaves the poker table (and a winning hand) to propose to her. He tells her of the opportunities waiting in the rapidly growing city of San Francisco. She accepts his proposal.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.
=== The Civil War (1861–1865) ===
Linus Rawlings joins the Union army as a captain in the American Civil War. Despite Eve's wishes, their son Zeb (George Peppard) eagerly enlists as well, looking for glory and an escape from farming. Corporal Peterson (Andy Devine) assures them the conflict will not last very long. The bloody Battle of Shiloh shows Zeb that war is nothing like he imagined and, unknown to him, his father dies there. Zeb encounters a similarly disillusioned Confederate (Russ Tamblyn) who suggests deserting.
By chance, they overhear a private conversation between Generals Ulysses S. Grant (Harry Morgan) and William Tecumseh Sherman (John Wayne). The rebel 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 with the bayonet from his shattered musket. Afterward, Zeb rejoins the army.
Harry Morgan was uncredited in some of the marketing for "How the West Was Won" - an ironic fact, given that his portrayal of Grant is regarded by some observers as the best-ever filmic portrayal of the general. Morgan would go on to have one of the more successful TV careers of any actor of his generation, climaxing with his work as another gritty military man, Col. Potter, on MASH in the '70s.
When the war finally ends, Zeb returns home as a lieutenant, only to find his mother has died. She had lost the will to live after learning that Linus had been killed. Zeb gives his share of the family farm to his brother, who is content to be a farmer, and leaves in search of a more interesting life.
Directed by John Ford.
=== The Railroad (1868) ===
Following the daring riders from the Pony Express and the construction of the transcontinental telegraph line in the late 1860s, two ferociously competing railroad lines, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad, one building westward and the other eastward, open up new territory to eager settlers.
Zeb becomes a lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry, trying to maintain peace with the Indians with the help of grizzled buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda), an old friend of Linus. When ruthless railroad man Mike King (Richard Widmark) violates a treaty by building on Indian territory, the Arapaho Indians retaliate by stampeding buffalo through his camp, killing many, including women and children. Disgusted, Zeb resigns and heads to Arizona.
A subplot with Hope Lange as Jethro Stuart's daughter, named Julie, leading to a love triangle between Zeb and Mike King with Julie marrying and later leaving Zeb was deleted.
Directed by George Marshall.
=== The Outlaws (1889) ===
In San Francisco, widowed Lilith auctions off her possessions (she and Cleve had made and spent several fortunes) to pay her debts. She travels to Arizona, inviting Zeb and his family to oversee her remaining asset, a ranch.
Zeb (now a marshal), his wife Julie (Carolyn Jones), and their children meet Lilith at Gold City's train station. However, Zeb also runs into an old enemy there, outlaw Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach). Zeb had killed Gant's brother in a gunfight. When Gant makes veiled threats against Zeb and his family, Zeb turns to his friend and Gold City's marshal, Lou Ramsey (Lee J. Cobb), but Gant is not wanted for anything in that territory, so there is little Ramsey can do.
Zeb decides he has to act rather than wait for Gant to make good his threat someday. Suspecting Gant of planning to rob an unusually large gold shipment being transported by train, he prepares an ambush with Ramsey's reluctant help. Gant and his entire gang (one member played by Harry Dean Stanton) are killed in the shootout and resulting train wreck. In the end, Lilith and the Rawlings family travel to their new home.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.
=== Epilogue ===
A short epilogue shows modern Los Angeles and San Francisco in the early 1960s, including the four-level downtown freeway interchange and Golden Gate Bridge.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.
revenge, historical, murder, violence