How the West Was Won-Special Edition (Blu-ray) (1962)

Entertainment Weekly
"The buffalo stampede, rapids run, and train robbery sequences are seamless..." -- Grade: A- 09/19/2008 p.56

New York Times
"[T]he open-air sequences...with their unmoving camera, long-shot compositions and rootedness in the rural landscape, recall the work of the American pioneer D.W. Griffith." 09/08/2008

Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n epic western of staggering scale and ambition....The buffalo stampede is a pummelling experience on the small screen; writ large, it must have been terrifying." 12/01/2008 p.148

Variety 9 of 10
It would be hard to imagine a subject which lends itself more strikingly to the wide-screen process than this yarn of the pioneers who opened the American West. It's a story [suggested by the series How the West Was Won in Life magazine] which naturally puts the spotlight on action and adventure, and the three directors between them have turned in some memorable sequences...George Marshall [credited with the final segment, The Railroad] has the credit for the buffalo stampede, started by the Indians when the railroad was moving out West. This magnificently directed sequence is as vivid as anything ever put on celluloid. Undoubtedly the highlight of Henry Hathaway's contribution [The Rivers, the Plains, the Outlaws] is the chase of outlaws who attempt to hold up a train with a load of bullion. John Ford's directorial stint [The Civil War] is limited to the Civil War sequences, and though that part does not contain such standout incident, there is the fullest evidence of his high professional standards...Peck gives a suave and polished gloss to his role of the gambler, and Stewart has some fine, if typical, moments in his scenes...John Wayne has a minor part as General Sherman, but he, too, makes the charactor stand out. Spencer Tracy is heard but not seen as the narrator.
 
Ozus' World Movie Reviews 7 of 10
The first film in Cinerama. Watching it at home without the three-strip Cinerama process takes most of the sparkle out of the film. It's a sprawling epic with an all-star cast that follows the development of the West through one pioneering New England family of Zebulon Prescott, who in 1839 leave from the Erie Canal to go West to start a new farm in Ohio. It follows Zebulon Prescott's children and grandchildren for the next fifty years in their western adventures, some reaching California. Spencer Tracy is the narrator. John Ford, Henry Hathaway, and George Marshall do the directing honors, each handling individual episodes. Hathaway does a nice job in his three sequences ("The River", "The Plains," and "The Outlaws"). He tells of the adventure of America's westward expansion. Ford's fifteen-minute sequence on the Civil War is the highlight of the film. It tells the tale of a coming-of-age farm boy (George Peppard) saving General U.S. Grant from a Confederate assassination attempt during the Battle of Shiloh. The rest of the film is unbearably dull and muddled, doing more for getting at the landscape and its numerous genial pioneering tunes than nailing it down in dramatics...The top grossing film of 1962 won Oscars for screenplay (James R. Webb), film editing (Harold F. Kress), and sound production (Franklin E. Milton). - Dennis Schwartz