Another movie that's close to coming off my DVR is one that in some ways is a bit difficult to do a good post on, in part because everyone already knows what it's about: John Wayne's 1960 version of The Alamo. But, having finally watched it, I feel obligated to do a post on it.
I'll admit I don't know how well the story of the Alamo is known by people not from the US or Mexico, but the basic story takes place in what is now the million-plus city of San Antonio, TX when it was a much smaller settlement. Texas at the time was part of Mexico, but Americans coming west from Louisiana looking for land. The Mexican government under Santa Anna unsurprisingly didn't want a rebellious population and tried to put down the rebel forces. The rebel leader, Gen. Sam Houston (played here by Richard Boone in a small role) tried to get a small band of soldiers to hold a point along the way -- that mission in San Antonio known as the Alamo -- long enough for Houston to shore up his troops. The Mexicans laid siege to the Alamo, killing all of the defending soldiers, but of course the rebels won the war, winning independence for Texas before it eventually joined the US in 1845.
This version of the movie starts off with Col. William Travis (Laurence Harvey) in command of the soldiers sent by Houston to hold the Alamo, but they're still a good ways away from the Alamo. Travis is trying to recruit soldiers, and has some soldiers in the form of men commanded by Col. Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark). Travis and Bowie, however, are consistently at odds with each other. Coming in from Tennessee is Davy Crockett (John Wayne) with his own band of men. Travis thinks of Crockett as a backwoods hick, not knowing that Crockett had been elected Senator and is actually quite intelligent.
In addition to the subplot of the officious Travis conflicting with the other officers under his command, there's another subplot of Crockett coming across a Mexican wido, Flaca (Linda Cristal), to whom Crockett takes a liking. She, however, is set to marry a local businessman even though it's obvious that this would be a bad marriage for her. Flaca tells Davy that she's grown up enough to handle things herself and doesn't need Davy to save her. However, she does help the Americans by giving them the location of a weapons cache, which will give the Americans some valuable weaponry for when they get to the Alamo.
They get to the Alamo and the officers all realize how hopeless the situation is, although things are about to get even worse because another officer who was supposed to provide relief was ambushed along the way. Eventually Santa Anna shows up, and the rest is, as we say, history, although the movie version of history doesn't always agree with the real version of history.
Rounding out the cast is a young Frankie Avalon, presumably there to appeal to the teenage set; he plays a messenger type called Smitty who is under Crockett's command and who Crockett sends away to spare his life. Then there's the drunkard Beekeeper (Chill Wills in an Oscar-nominated role) who is supposed to be providing comic relief although if I were one of these military men and had to deal with a character like this in real life I'd smack him into the next state.
John Wayne directed, and supposedly didn't want to act in the movie, only being forced into it by the other producers because they wanted yet another name star to help bring people to the theater. I didn't have any big problems with Wayne's direction here. For me, the bigger problem was with the screenplay. Never mind the historical inaccuracies; that's to be expected in any movie like this. Instead, it's that the film runs over 160 minutes, and this is cut down by a good half hour from the roadshow version. The movie takes way too long in getting to the actual Alamo and then gives the battle short shrift.
The Alamo is a nice try at an epic from yet another actor-turned-director, albeit one that doesn't always work. It's not terrible by any means, but it's certainly not great.
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