A Monument, A Last Hurrah, of Hollywood's Golden Age This movie was released in 1962. Fistful of Dollars was released in 1964. Times were changing, and an entire Era of Hollywood was ending. Many of it's big stars were already dead, like Clark Gable, and Gary Cooper. Others, like John Wayne, and James Stewart, both featured in this film, had seen most of their successes in their past, with fewer successes to come, and even those films weren't old the old days.
This movie is a more than a celebration of the west, and it's history, it's a monument, a celebration of what Hollywood once was, and never could be again. Sweeping Epics. Melodramatic Romance with Adventurous backdrops. Larger than life men with balls made of Steel. Beautiful charismatic women who can steal hearts better than any president. (Not to say future films didn't have their own version. Who would question the testicular fortitude of Clint Eastwood?)
This was Hollywood, how it was, in one of it's most bright and colorful moments. Emotional, draws you in. You feel for these characters, and love them, the whole family, as they age. But you feel perhaps, that the west comes, grows up, ages, and declines. Fitting that the final major piece of the film, is a Great Train Robbery. A famous story from the west, but also an homage to Film making itself, for the Great Train Robbery (1903) was there at the birth of American Cinema... and here we are, "How the West Was Won", sees an age come to an end...
This film is worth seeing, especially if you are a Hollywood Golden Age fan.