How the West Was Won (1962)

The epic 1962 film is told in five parts, all following the Prescott family.

The Rivers (1839): Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) has decided to move west.  He sold his farm in the east, packed up his family, and boarded a boat on the Erie Canal in Albany, NY.  Soon, the family is rafting down the Ohio River in search of land to farm.  On the way, they meet mountain man Linus Rawlings (Jimmy Stewart) and have a run in with river pirates.  Zebulon and his wife drown in the river and their elder daughter, Eve (Carroll Baker) decides that this is where she will settle with Linus.  Her younger sister, Lilith (Debbie Reynolds), has no desire to farm and plans to return to the East.

The Plains (1851): Lilith, who showed a knack for singing, dancing, and just being entertaining during The Rivers, is now a professional entertainer in St. Louis.  She receives word that an admirer has left her a gold strike in California.  She decides to claim her gold mine and joins a wagon train headed to California.  The wagonmaster, Roger (Robert Preston), finds her attractive and pursues her.  Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), a down on his luck gambler, had heard of her gold claim and is following to take advantage.  The journey makes him a better man and he weds Lilith.

The Civil War (1861 to 1865): Zeb Rawlings (George Peppard) wants to join the army and follow his father to war.  Eve tries to convince him to work for her sister in California but he's determined.  He joins and soon finds that war has no glory.  His father dies at Shiloh in 1862.  When the war is done, he returns to the farm to find his mother has died.  He declines his brother's offer for half the farm and stays in the army to go further west.

The Railroad (1868): The railroad is being built to join the east and the west.  Mike King (Richard Widmark) cares not a whit about anything but getting the railroad constructed as fast as possible.  It is left to Lt. Zeb Rawlings to try to keep the peace with the Arapaho.  He is helped in that task by Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda), a man who used to trap with his father.  Eventually, King presses the Arapaho too far and Zeb can take it no more.  He resigns the army and rides out west.

The Outlaws (1889): Lilith is forced to sell most of her belongings in San Francisco as she is broke and Cleve has died.  However, she still has a ranch in Arizona and she knows just the man to run it: her nephew Zeb.  Zeb spent much of the intervening years as a marshal.  He has married and has 3 children.  A settled life appeals to his wife.  However, an old enemy, Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach) happens to be in Arizona and is keen on revenge for his brother's death at Zeb's hands.  Deducing that Gant has arrived to stage a train robbery, Zeb plans to be on that train to catch him in the act with the help of Sheriff Ramsey (Lee J Cobb).

At 2 hours and 44 minutes, it's a long film.  Some casting choices are goofy.  According to his tombstone, Linus Rawlings was born in 1810, meaning he was 28 or 29 when he met Eve in The Rivers.  In fact, Jimmy Stewart was 53!  Agatha Clegg has joined the wagon train to find a man in the west but is played by 60 year-old Thelma Ritter.  Optimistic.  Though I like Harry Morgan, he is totally overshadowed by John Wayne in their scene together.  General Grant should not be so overshadowed by a subordinate, even Sherman.  Someone with more star power should have been cast as Grant to balance out John Wayne.

This is a Western that covers all the bases: mountain men, buffalo stampede, railroads, Indian attacks, wagon trains, gambling on steamboats, train robbery, gun fights, romance, dancehall girls, and on.  Five movies in one which tie together neatly.  Entertaining from start to finish.  Thumbs up.

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

The story opens with Kiki (Kirsten Dunst) lying in the grass and staring at the sky.  The radio announced that it was going to be a clear sky and a full moon.  Excited, Kiki rushes home.  She's going to leave tonight!  Kiki is 13, the age at which a young witch must strike out in the world, spending a year away from home to hone her magical skills.  Her mother is a witch who specializes in potions.  Under the light of the full moon, Kiki and her cat Jiji (Phil Hartman) take to the sky on a broom.  She plans to fly to the ocean and pick a town along the coast.  She finds a city!  The city finds witches quaint and looks at her as an oddity.  It is tough to find her place and Jiji would like to leave to find somewhere else.  By chance encounter, she stumbles upon the idea of a delivery service.  Her flying makes her unique.  When not delivering, she works at a bakery.  She soon has a repeat customer (Debbie Reynolds) who practically adopts her as a granddaughter.

This is a story of a girl moving to a new city and trying to fit in. This is a faux 1950s Europe that didn't suffer WWI and WWII. Here is a thriving city with no villains to purge or bigots to overcome. The big draw is the art, fantastic setting, and relatable characters. An early Hayao Miyazaki film with plenty of epic flying, beautiful scenery, and a fun story. Highly recommended.

Debbie Reynolds

The day after her daughter died, Debbie Reynolds is gone.  It has been a very difficult two days for Todd Fisher and Billie Lourd.  Debbie Reynolds' career peaked in the 50s and 60s.  As I look at her body of work on IMDb, I recognize only a handful that I have seen, many of those where she only had a supporting role.  Of her films, three stand out in my memory.

 

The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964): I saw this a couple of times, the most recent of which would be more than 30 years ago.  Though Molly is famed for surviving the Titanic, that is a small part of the film.  I was reminded of Beverly Hillbillies when I saw the movie, where Molly is mostly rejected by the established aristocrats.  I should see this again and test my memory of it.

 

Mother (1996): I have rarely found Albert Brooks funny but this movie was an exception.  I think that can mostly be attributed to Debbie Reynolds' role as his mother.  I particularly enjoyed her going out on a date and telling him not to wait up or something like that.  Brooks was his normal hapless self, which worked in this movie.

 

Singin' in the Rain (1952): The greatest musical ever made.  Not long after my father bought a VHS, he taped this movie.  My brother and I watched this and Star Wars (I didn't know that Kathy Selden was Princess Leia's mom back then) almost weekly.  Her takedown of Don Lockwood's (Gene Kelly) ego might have served as a model for Leia's scruffy-looking nerf-herder comments to Han Solo 28 years later.  The movie is a joy from start to finish, full of song, dance, and humor.