An American Western adventure; A story set in 1830s about a New England farmer and his family who make an East-West crossing of America by way of rivers and plains, through conflict and in the midst of the Civil War, to the building of the railroad and encountering different characters along the way. This chronicle has great spectacle and scale, not least by its presentation in Cinerama, but is in effect a recap of Westerns hitherto and cannot boast anything new in style, and the writing is not so fresh. James Stewart and Gregory Peck help to establish the character drama with some helpful support by John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark. Hathaway, Marsh and Ford shouldered the directing responsiblities for their story phases, and they excelled, but without one person's clear vision it suffered from overemphasis of frenetic action, and an answer to the overall theme - see title for reference.