Continuity mistake: Approximately 46 minutes into the film, Robert Preston is testing a new bullwhip. The whip is in his left hand as he brings his arm back and cracks the whip. He brings the left arm back for a second crack, and the shot changes to a closer angle just as he brings the whip down, only now it is suddenly in his right hand and not the left. The editing, the sound effect, the arm swing all seem perfectly coordinated, except that the whip changed hands between camera set-ups.
How the West Was Won (1962)
Trailers
Directed by: John Ford, George Marshall, Henry Hathaway, Richard Thorpe
Starring: John Wayne, James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Carroll Baker, Carolyn Jones
More trailers
More mistakes in How the West Was Won
Zeb Rawlings: Boys, get back from there! Look down there son. Do you know how deep that shaft is?
Prescott Rawlings: Huh uh.
Zeb Rawlings: That's a thousand feet deep. Do you know how deep a thousand feet is? Well, if you had two hundred brothers all standing on your shoulders, you wouldn't be able to see over the top.
Prescott Rawlings: I'd be squooshed.
Trivia: Although Carroll Baker plays George Peppard's mother in this film, she was only three years his senior.
Question: Doesn't the water tower fall completely to the ground during the buffalo stampede in the original theatrical release? It's missing in the DVD release.
Answer: Footage of the water tower falling has NEVER appeared in the film. My first viewing of the film was in Cinerama in 1962 and the tower doesn't fall over. It doubtless was supposed to fall over but for technical reasons it didn't come out right, and so no footage beyond seeing it wobble a bit has ever been in the film.
This answer is incorrect. The original release did have the tower fall over completely. There's even a picture of the flooding after it falls over. It was since deleted. Http://www.daveswarbirds.com/HTWWW/deleted_scenes.htm.
I agree. The tower fell and water poured out. I saw this movie in Cinerama in 1963. For years later, I wondered why I never saw that scene in its entirety again. A shame that for a mistake that caused the unintentional death of an animal, the scene should no longer be viewed by anyone.
Answer: I saw the film in Cinerama the week it came out and the water tower didn't fall. I remember being puzzled by the shot of it falling in the souvenir program.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Yes, the water tower did indeed fall completely over in the initial release. I saw it fall all the way to the ground and release a flood of water. What happened was that the tower fell on the rump of one of the buffaloes, and the buffalo stumbled and got up and continued running. Later the animal rights people objected to the scene, so it was removed from the DVD, and all that was left was the tower shown leaning over.