"HOW THE WEST WAS WON"
DELETED SCENES
There are at least two deleted scenes or deleted parts of the movie that I am aware of. The first, and most extensive, involves a character played by Hope Lange. Ms. Lange was cast as a showgirl and as a love interest for George Peppard’s character. One website lists her as a St. Louis showgirl, but I would instead say that she was working at the saloon where we see George Peppard have the discussion about milk with Richard Widmark, making it relatively near the railroad camp and therefore much further west. Further information on her character can be found in the Louis L'Amour novelization of the 1962 movie screenplay. Ms. Lange’s character was named Julie Stewart, and she was the girlfriend of George Peppard’s character and the daughter of Henry Fonda’s character. Henry Fonda once had a more extensive role in the film, but his role was severely cut back, while Hope’s scenes were removed from the movie entirely. With the exception of the photos below, all that seems to remain at this point is rumors of the missing parts and plot lines.
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Click on each of the thumbnails above to see the full-sized photos
According to the novel, Julie Stewart and Zeb Rawlings married, and raised the children as shown in the last chapter of the movie. This means that Hope Lange's character ended up being played by Carolyn Jones in the movie's final chapter ("The Outlaws"). So what happened? My guess is that something caused the producer or director to entirely remove Hope Lange from the Railroad chapter of the movie (for some as yet unknown reason). They then brought in Carolyn Jones to play that same character during the Outlaws sequence. I don't know why they would replace Ms. Lange with Ms. Jones, but I assume that they decided it was easier to just delete all of the scenes with Lange, rather than have to go back and re-shoot them all with Ms. Jones.
One guess about why the scenes were not included in the final version of the film (assuming that they were ever filmed at all) is that the added scenes involving Jethro Stewart (played by Henry Fonda) and those involving the love triangle between Zeb Rawlings, Julie Stewart, and Mike King (played by Richard Widmark, see photo #5 above) would have substantially added time to the movie's length, perhaps to over four hours. Perhaps this sub plot of the movie was deleted in order to cut down the film to a more marketable 3+ hours. Who knows? If you have any info that could shed light on the questions raised above, please contact me.
It’s really too bad that Ms. Lange’s part was cut, as she was really quite attractive back in those days, and I would have liked to see her interactions with Mr. Peppard. It’s also too bad that Henry Fonda’s part was really cut down, as I liked his character almost as much as Jimmy Stewart’s.
The second deleted scene that I am aware of is in the last chapter of the movie, just after Sheriff Ramsay (Lee J. Cobb’s character) confronts Zeb Rawlings (George Peppard’s character) in the barn. Ramsay is there to prevent Rawlings from getting on the train. There’s a tense moment where Ramsay is ready to draw his gun on Rawlings, but in the end of the scene Rawlings appears to have convinced Ramsay of the validity of his mission, and the scene fades out. The next time we see Ramsay, however, is at the train, and now he has a bandage on his forehead! The movie never explains why it is there, and some movie websites like to point out the apparent goof. However, I believe that the explanation is that the scene continued to the point where Zeb was forced to club Ramsay in the head with his rifle butt in order to knock him out (so that he could get past him to go to the train). Ramsay evidently recovers in time to also make it to the train with his deputy, and apparently doesn’t hold a grudge for the incident.
Clues to this deleted scene can be found in the comic book of the movie, which was released around 1962. The comic book seems to show the results of the knockout, though this deleted scene is not part of the movie. I can only assume that the production of the comic book was based on a pre-release version of the movie script, but that the scene was deleted from the movie during the final editing process, while remaining in the already completed comic book. Here is a portion of the comic book, which I was able to find on Ebay:
New update: I just received the following photograph from an HTWWW fan in Germany. It shows an identical scene of Zeb leaning over Marshall Ramsay as depicted above. The colors look off because it is from a colorized lobby card (painting black and white photos in color was commonly done at the time). In any case, it is proof that the scene was filmed, but later cut from the final version.
I would love to get more information on either the Hope Lange/Henry Fonda deleted scenes or the above rifle butt incident (or any others I am not aware of). If anyone has any information on these topics, or knows where I can get a copy of the script, please let me know. Thanks!
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