Watched "How the West Was Won" again yesterday in flat screen "living room Cinerama".
Deb's Meadow where the "True Grit" showdown shootout would take place 7 years later in 1968/69 played center stage in many of the scenes of this same "West Was Won" movie as did "Courthouse Mountain" and "Chimney Peak" (all True Grit locations). Even the creek-side campsite where Rooster says to LaBoeuf ~ "If ever I meet one of you Texas waddies who ain't drunk from a hoofprint, I think I'll, I'll shake their hand or buy'em a Daniel Webster cigar!" ~ is also the very same location where a major scene is played between Robert Preston and Debbie Reynolds almost 7 years earlier.
Henry Hathaway was one of several directors on this movie and he would later go on to also direct True Grit. He obviously fell in love with the scenery there in the San Juan mountains and thanks to that ~ a beautifully photographed True Grit would go on to become a movie classic.
