How the West Was Won (1962)

Spencer Tracy: Narrator

Quotes 

• Narrator : The west was won by its pioneers, settlers, adventurers is long gone now. Yet it is theirs forever, for they left tracks in history that will never be eroded by wind or rain - never plowed under by tractors, never buried in compost of events. Out of the hard simplicity of their lives, out of their vitality, of their hopes and sorrows grew legends of courage and pride to inspire their children and their children's children. From soil enriched by their blood, out of their fever to explore and be, came lakes where once there were burning deserts - came the goods of the earth; mine and wheat fields, orchards and great lumber mills. All the sinews of a growing country. Out of their rude settlements, their trading posts came cities to rank among the great ones of the world. All the heritage of a people free to dream, free to act, free to mold their own destiny.

  [final narrative from the film "How The West Was Won"1962 - narrated by Spencer Tracy] 

• Narrator : [speaking about the Civil War]  After Shiloh, the South never smiled.

• Narrator : [speaking about the Erie Canal]  ... about 150 years ago, an idea took shape in the mind of a man named DeWitt Clinton. And in the way Americans have of acting out their dreams, it came to be.

• [first lines] 

  Narrator : [as the camera pans over the Rocky Mountains]  This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But, the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.