"How The West Was Won" is more than a great film. It is an American epic. Homer composed "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," the epic poems of Greek civilization. Virgil's "Aeneid" did the same for the Romans. This movie captures the essence of the distinctively optimistic nature of American heroism. Its focus is on conquering a continent, not on conquering a rival city or tribe. It emphasizes the can-do American spirit that, in a century, transformed a trackless wilderness into history's most advanced civilization. Today, sixty years after its filming, we can recognize that this movie captures the essence of America more accurately and completely than any other movie ever made. It is the American epic.