Every once in a while a Hollywood epic corrals its best & brightest stars.Some such efforts fall nothing short of disaster (The Greatest Story ever Told springs to mind),; others put you right beside the men fighting and dying in the trenches (The Longest Day). The Duke's misfortune was to be a participant in all three of the above-mentioned films. With narration by legendary actor Spencer Tracy, we trace the myth of the West, from the rapids of the Ohio River, to the wagon trains crossing the plains and the divisions of the Civil War. The sequence where they're laying the tracks for the Iron Horse is impeded by the stampeding buffalo and a great train robbery, bringing the legend of the settling of the West to a close.
Legends are as useless to a story without a person to populate it, and so we have a family whose history we follow through all the hardships of the American 19th Century wilderness. We have mountain man Jimmy Stewart, clearly much too old for the part he was give. America's sweetheart Debbie Reynolds turns in stronger performance as Lilith Prescott than one would think possible. Of course Jimmy picks her sister Eve (Carroll Baker, while Lilith winds up with a ne'er do well gambler, Cleve Van Valen, played by the great Gregory Peck.
I should mention that John Wayne has a remarkably short cameo, given his star billing. He is having a campfire pep talk with Henry Morgan (M.A.S.H.'s Col. Potter), playing Ulysses S. Grant. The Duke is General. Sherman, which begs the question why they cast these two fellows in roles where their height is obviously working against them. But his job is to pour vinegar on Grant's spine just when he needs a good talking to. Meanwhile their conversation is overheard by two soldiers making small talk behind the lines--a Reb and young Zebulon Rawlings. For the last time we also partake of Raymond Massey's walk-on cameo as Lincoln, for which he received no spoken lines at all.
There is a great deal of natural spectacle, though most of the history having bent to the conventions of action sequences. Four directors were required for this production (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall & Richard Thorpe for the transitions). It's absolutely astonishing how well the finished product melds into one unified production.
The time jumps make it hard to follow sometimes. And yet it's impossible not to admire the sweeping panoramic shots and birds-eye views of the American wilderness, all ending with a sky-high view of the cloverleafs of the San Francisco freeways of 1963 and all the modern cities our ancestor's sacrifices made possible. Highly recommended.
