About this item
How The West Was Won is a true classic from the glory days of MGM. Everything about this film is done on a grand scale. The cast includes some of the biggest names ever to appear in a motion picture. Including: Gregory Peck, James Stewart, John Wayne, Debbie Reynolds, Spencer Tracy and Richard Widmark. The widescreen cinerama process appears dated and inconsistant by today's standards and it should be noted that the new DVD edition is not in anamorphic widescreen. The DVD edition appears to be a new transfer from the same previous 35mm print but contains notable improvements which include brighter more accurate colors and a clarity and definition that the picture has never had before on home video. The aspect ratio is also closer to the cinerama widescreen ratio, but there is still a noticeable cropping of the sides. The film also has the characteristic visable cinerama seams. The new DVD edition is the best the film has looked outside a cinerama theatre and is probably the best edition we will ever get. The restoration effort on "My Fair Lady" cost 1.2 Million dollars over a two year period. It probably would not be economically sound to treat HTWWW to the same restoration effort as it does not have as much consumer support. If you want HTWWW I suggest that you buy this edition, otherwise you may be in for a long wait.
About the Author
James Stewart received the M.S. degree from Stanford University and the Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of London, he became Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University. His research has been in harmonic analysis and functional analysis. Stewart's books include a series of high school textbooks as well as a best-selling series of calculus textbooks. He is also co-author, with Lothar Redlin and Saleem Watson, of a series of college algebra and precalculus textbooks. Translations of his books include those in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Greek, and Indonesian.A talented violinst, Stewart was concertmaster of the McMaster Symphony Orchestra for many years and played professionally in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Having explored connections between music and mathematics, Stewart has given more than 20 talks worldwide on Mathematics and Music and is planning to write a book that attempts to explain why mathematicians tend to be musical.Stewart was named a Fellow of the Fields Institute in 2002 and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. in 2003 by McMaster University. The library of the Fields Institute is named after him. The James Stewart Mathematics Centre was opened in October, 2003, at McMaster University.
