The Way West

The three leading roles Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark pay the picture itself, added with a fine supporting casting as still beauty Lola Albright, the funny Harry Carey Jr., the younger fiery Sally Field and Stefan Arngrim who after this picture was casting for Irwin's Allen's Land of the Giants series, a supposed story about a caravan between Missouri to Oregon, almost shot along the long journey, across great lowlands, deserts, forest and deepest canyon, in the meantime followed by angry Indians, disagreement over the route, betrayal, hanging and love, Mitchum maybe was the most interesting character, draught, wise, alone and friendy, Kirk Douglas is quite a opposite guy unyielding and dreamer, Widmark a brute force, summarizing the picture let it see easily, apart the final scenes at canyon!!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5

This film begins with a prominent former U. S. Senator by the name of "William J. Tadlock" (Kirk Douglas) trying to persuade a trapper and scout named "Dick Summers" (Robert Mitchum) to help lead a caravan full of settlers in Missouri through hostile Indian country on the way to Oregon. Although Dick Summers is initially reluctant due to his continued grieving over the death of his wife two years earlier, he eventually gets worn down and accepts the job. And although he figures he will have to deal with different personalities in this particular wagon train, what he doesn't realize is just how difficult it will be to accomplish to work with a man as mean and tyrannical as William J. Tadlock making all of the decisions. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off as one of those fairly standard Westerns but turned out to be quite entertaining due in large part to the presence of some of top-notch actors along with a couple of surprising developments along the way. One specific situation included a promiscuous young woman named "Mercy McBee" (Sally Field) and her interaction with a newlywed man named "Johnnie Mack" (Michael Whitney) and his frigid bride "Amanda Mack" (Katherine Justice) which then creates all kinds of drama along the way. Be that as it may, I have always enjoyed old-fashioned Westerns and I thought that this was one of the better ones during this particular period of time.

This western is very unusual in that it features three top leading men--Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark. Now you'd think with all this high-octane masculinity and acting that this would be a terrific film, well, you'd be wrong. While it isn't a bad film, it does suffer from a thoroughly adequate script--one that never seems to deliver the goods.

Douglas plays an ex-senator bent on starting the first white colony in Oregon in 1848. The problem is that he's not exactly 'Mr. Personality'--and his abrasive and autocratic ways rub everyone in the wagon train wrong. Can he get them all to his promised land or will the folks ditch him and make for California? Tune in and see.

For the most part, this is a pretty ordinary drama about settling the West. As for Douglas, he overacts more than usual (and what's with that whipping scene?!?!). Widmark's character is inconsistent and underwritten. The only lead who comes off well is Mitchum--as a weary Kit Carson-type. Aside from being pretty ordinary and predictable, the film did have a few pluses. There was nice cinematography and as a history teacher, I appreciated how they showed lots of mules, oxen and cows pulling the wagons--whereas most films only show horses (a mistake). But this isn't enough to raise it above mediocrity.

The Way West is an epic western, but unlike another epic western How the West Was Won, it isn't a very good film. The main problem here is that the script writers and the director have got carried away, and have tried to cram far too many events and subplots into the two hour running time.

The main plot thread follows an ambitious and cruel visionary named William Tadlock (Kirk Douglas), who dreams of taking hundreds of people into the vast, unexplored wilderness of the Wild West and starting up a new town. His ambition is an obsession. It drives him and dictates his every move. Even his own family come second in his list of priorities. During the journey, his behaviour towards the other pioneers becomes increasingly irrational and unsympathetic, and in the end he loses the respect of his fellow travellers.

There are some good moments in the film. The climax is really surprising, with a twist that few viewers will predict. Sally Field has some interesting scenes as a young girl who undergoes a sexual awakening during the trip. There's also a well done scene in which a man who has killed an Indian child by accident is hanged. However, the abundance of plot threads, characters and subplots is a big drawback. The makers should have concentrated on a few elements and done them really thoroughly, instead of cramming in so much and only dealing with the themes in a shallow and all-too-brief fashion. This is not bad, I suppose, but it could have been oh so much better.

In 1843 Missouri, hot-headed senator Kirk Douglas leads a large group of chosen people across rugged terrain to start "a new Jerusalem" in Oregon; he picks a half-blind pioneer scout (mourning the death of his Indian wife!) to help lead them, but immediately clashes with a family man over incidental matters; meanwhile, a sex-starved teenage girl has a fling with a married man, resulting in personal tragedy and an Indian attack (don't ask). A small pox outbreak is falsely reported, there's a wedding, a frigid woman goes insane, and the trail comes to an end at the Grand Canyon. A.B. Guthrie, Jr.'s book becomes somewhat besotted western epic with star-names, mixing vulgar jokes and inanities with ripe old clichés. A voice-over narration and a patriotic song come clean out of nowhere, while snarling Douglas blames himself for a death and asks a servant to whip him. It's cheap and low-brow all the way, but most viewers in the mood for a picture such as this probably won't be disappointed. There are some solid elements worth mentioning: William H. Clothier's outdoor cinematography is fine in the old-fashioned sense; and, although Bronislau Kaper whips up a dusty frenzy with his ridiculous score, the pacing is jaunty throughout and the wagons roll along at a fast clip. Douglas and Richard Widmark manage to retain their movie star allure, though Robert Mitchum was looking haggard by this time (and his performance is intentionally forgettable--he cancels out all his interest in the proceedings with one heavy sigh). Sally Field makes an inauspicious movie debut which I'm fairly certain she'd rather forget, but Lola Albright has a pleasing smile and Michael Witney does well as the handsome married man who can't get his wife to submit...but why does he shoot blindly into a rustling bush at night when it could have been his wife spying on him? Perhaps he was hoping it was! **1/2 from ****