SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

grizzledgeezer "The Way West" could have been a classic. Kirk Douglas plays a driven wagon master determined, like Burger King, to have it his way -- the goal being to herd pioneers to Oregon, to fulfill his dream of establishing an ideal city, with a crystal-covered playground for the kiddies.Unfortunately, Douglas quite fails to engage with the character or his situation. He is so distant and (generally) uninvolved that he might just as well delivered his lines from a Barcalounger. The rest of the actors rarely show much interest, either.The potential for intense drama and powerful emotion is present, but unrealized. The flabby script doesn't help, and first-time director Andrew McLaglen (son of Victor) has no idea what to do about it. * Only Jack Elam (arguably one of the all-time great actors) survives this snooze-fest, delivering a pitch-perfect turn as a minister.The fun moments come during an attempt to lower the pioneers over the edge of a high, steep cliff to the river bank below, one at a time. The first to go down dies when the wagon bumps against the cliff wall, and he -- or rather, an obvious dummy -- is thrown out.After Douglas unconvincingly convinces the pioneers to keep truckin' on down with him, he, too, (or rather a re-dressed dummy) also falls to his death when Psycho Sally cuts the rope to spare the pioneers having to put up with this monster of a man."The Way West" is inexcusably bad. Unless you like being bored to death by annoying films, the funny stuff takes too long to arrive.* His poor direction is particularly noticeable when the wagon train reaches a fort near the end of their journey. The commander has an Indian sidekick who insists on shaking Douglas's hand, and won't let go. A smart director would have built up the part a bit, to add some badly needed humor.

stevetadlock This movie was based upon a true story, Although he was a Illinois Tadlock and not of the Texas strain...We still honor him because we all came from the original 1779 Tadlock English emigrant. Most of the Tadlock's have been Farmer/rancher or Builders. William has been a predominate name in our family along with the physical trait of the cleft chin (it was nice that Hollywood selected "Kirk Douglas" who also has a cleft chin to play a Tadlock) My Great Grand Father left Texas (Gonzales County) in the early 1900's He (Malcolm Tadlock) and his brother (Rutherford Hayes Tadlock) traveled west building brick buildings along the way. Rutherford went back to Texas while Malcolm settled in San Diego in 1916 and became one of the founding members of the La Mesa 1st Baptist church. He and his wife "V" raise 65 thousand long leg Chickens during both world wars on their small ranch at 51st and Amherst in La Mesa, Ca. Along with running the commercial fishing boat the "Yellow Tail". They lost one son "Junior" in the south pacific during WW2.Steve Tadlock, Lakeside Ca. "God's Country" No stinking immoral liberal democrats here !!!

ragosaal This film had all to come out as a fine western: big budget, top stars, impressive outdoor locations, great color photography, acceptable stories around the main plot, interesting characters, action scenes and so on. But its a fact it didn't make it and turned out as just an average product and in my opinion director Andrew MacLaglen has to do with it.MacLaglen never was a very imaginative director. He just sort of pushed his films ahead following the scripts and taking no risks at all by including some personal touches or feelings; that's why it is hard to find really bad pictures in his filmography but you also won't find higher than average films either (other examples are "The Undefeated" with John Wayne and Rock Hudson; "The Last Hard Men" with Charton Heston, James Coburn and Barbara Hershey; "The Sea Wolves" with Gregory Peck, David Niven and Roger Moore). "The Way West" is a classical MacLaglen movie, just standard, average and light with no big flaws and no major highlights either.Kirk Douglas, Richard Widmark and Robert Mitchum are good but wasted in the leading parts. Sally Field's early role as a young girl too avid for man's favors showed she had talent and a promising career she certainly fulfilled.All in all, "The Way West" is just for western fans to spend a couple of hours without much expectations.

dbdumonteil The sixties were the last decade when western was a genre in its own right.It was dying all along the seventies and began to disappear afterwards,only revived now and then by people like Eastwood or Costner. Everybody knows that the western heyday was before:the forties and the fifties produced the definitive classics:Ford,Daves,Mann,Walsh were here."The Way West" is a fairly entertaining if conventional movie.In 1960 ,Anthony Mann did a better job -about the same subject-with "Cimarron".LITTLE SPOILER HERE Of the three leads ,only Douglas is given a relative interesting part:the actor has enough talent to overcome the weaknesses of the plot and he sometimes look like an old patriarch,some kind of Moses leading his people to the promise land.He can be particularly cruel and brutal and like Moses,he won't see the new world it's never too late to build. END OF SPOILERAs for Widmark ,he's cast against type as a nice man with wife and son,and he cannot make anything with it,and Robert Mitchum is cast as Robert Mitchum,period.A strong scene:an Indian boy has been killed by the Whites and his father demands justice.Douglas's character takes here harshness to new limits and during this long sequence,the audience is really panting for breath.MCLaglen ,probably influenced by Delmer Daves's lyricism,superbly uses the Indians here.An offbeat touch comes from the doomed Mack couple:the bride does not want to consummate the wedding and the husband consoles himself with a young Sally Field (her cinema debut)who was already hamming it up.