The Alamo 1960

This statement is guaranteed to upset quite a few John Wayne admirers, and perhaps a large number of Texans too, but The Alamo is the most cringeworthy and self-indulgent film I have had the misfortune to watch this year.

The Alamo is not a bad movie by any standards. It achieves, at the very least, mediocrity in its production values and some acting performance. I do not necessarily hate this film! But at the very least I did roll my eyes during much of its excessively long runtime. Maybe that explains why I bought it from a thrift store, it was still in the original recording plastic. Perhaps its previous owner checked some reviews online and simply never bothered.

What still baffles me is the amount of creative choices that are put to use here that baffled me. It is the exact reason why I do not believe its budget was justified. Let me elaborate further.

The Alamo is, of course, a dramatized rendition of the historically infamous 1836 Battle of the Alamo. I will delve into the historical inaccuracies shortly, but here is John Wayne’s version of events.

Previously, Texas was a region under control of Mexico. Texians, which was a term used for recently immigrated Americans, felt like they were being suppressed under the Mexican rule. To sort things, Mexico sent General Santa Anna along with an army.

Santa Anna’s character in this film is confusing because his motives are completely absent, just as the conflict between the Texians and Mexico over the latter’s slavery policies alongside the massacre of Mexican troops in the territory is missing. Not even Mexicos handbook revolution that profoundly shaped Mexico’s rule in Texas is mentioned. Every single statement painted Mexico as the villain. And to top it all off Davy Crockett, played by John Wayne, gives a long and boring speech about what the word ‘republic’ means. Truly, this is just another scene within this movie that shamelessly applauds the anti-communist agenda.

In any case, a relatively small force of rebels numbering between 100 and 150 knew of the approach the Mexican army was making, and made a camp at the Mexican Alamo Mission that was in ruins. This force commanded by William Barrett Travis, Laurence Harvey, and co. consisted of Jim Bowie, Richard Widmark, Davy Crockett and John Wayne, along with his loveable friend Smitty, Franklin Avalon. Not to mention the hoard of youngsters wearing coonskin caps from Tennessee whose faces were so prominent within the footage, one would assume that the conflict was actually between Tennessee and Mexico and not over Texas independence.

The troops of Santa Anna showed up. From then on, quite a lot of fighting took place. Indeed, up to this day, there are various different interpretations of what actually happened, and there are fierce debates over it.

I’m not going to argue with anyone about the facts of the Alamo, seeing as history has shown us no one was there. I will stick with the historians, because that is literally their gig. Step aside historians, I am going to know this movie better than you ever will. Here is a few of the most significant changes:

Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett were friends prior to the battle starting. Nope, actually Jim Bowie was there before Davy Crockett and only came right before the battle started.

Bowie was supposed to be huge. Rest of the country claims he was over 6 foot compared to crockett’s 5 8, but he was only 5 6. The reason being he is depicted smaller is that no one can be taller than John Wayne in a picture.

Bowie didn’t fight in the battle. In fact he was Alamo’s most severe at the end of the siege. Prep was getting out of bed boost g morale here or there around once a day.

John Wayne claiming he was in the battle is disputable. He wasn’t actually portraying a sweet teenage boy. Instead he was part of a group of three men who decided to go request for reinforcement by horseback. Neither was Crocket, but like the rest of us he looked better without his horse.

Considered as an important phase of the Civil War, an underlying reason for the confrontation was Texians’s eagerness to sustain the inflow of American immigrants into Texas (which was a part of Mexico at that time and had recently decided to shut its gates on Americans) and to keep the trade and ownership of slaves (which Mexico had already outlawed) active

It is not often mentioned that Jim Bowie was a slave trader who smuggled slaves after the abolition of slavery, in order to expand his family slave business. Thus, there is no way that he would have had the slightest chance of compassion to set free the captive he was owning in the midst of battle

It wasn’t all white people at the Alamo, there were fighters who were slaves and many Tejanos that were against the new dictatorship. (They were whitewashed out of the popular narrative so as to demonize Mexicans)

Davy Crockett did not have a Mexican love interest! Is it necessary to shove a fictional romantic subplot in this overblown script?!

For the record, to avoid facing too many subjects in one shot, let us assume the views of late 1950s America after the Second World War. Everyone loves John Wayne and Westerns. And America.

This version of the Alamo seems to be the ideal story to put on screen with Wayne on the front, so it’s ready for the big screen.

Now you have two American icons, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, risking it all for freedom and honor, or whatever patriotic good stuff.

Wayne is actually not half bad in The Alamo. His version of Crockett inserts his character much more in the proceedings than Bowie and Travis ever did, which seems custom made to Wayne’s stardom. He also has some excruciatingly tedious long speeches that make you forget the setting, but almost everyone does. You can tell that he is trying his best in this role.

Wayne actually did not want to portray Crockett. He wanted to tackle the role of Sam Houston so that he could concentrate on directing. The studio however wanted him to take a lead role so that they could maximize the box office. Wayne had already paid for a lot of the production so he could have the movie done his way, like getting second mortgages on his homes and taking out loans against his cars.

Laurence Harvey is outstanding as Col. Travis. Apparently Wayne wanted some British sophistication in his movie, hence, Harvey. Whatever the case may be, it is most assuredly powerful and memorable for Harvey’s performance.

Frankie Avalon’s accent is quite funny. But to my surprise, Avalon turned out to be quite entertaining. Wayne only cast Avalon because another teenage heartthrob, Ricky Nelson, did well in Rio Bravo, and Wayne was hoping this film would follow suit. It was a shock to me when he decided to praise Avalon’s acting and decided to keep all his scenes in the final cut.

Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie is rather grumpy, which I suppose is better than nothing. From what I have heard, Widmark believed that he was miscast and wanted to quit because he had to work with Wayne. Considering their extremely conflicting political views, record shows that he did a lot of chilling while pretending to be Richard Widmark disinterested in everything.

On the other hand, Chill Wills, IS there much to everyone’s annoyance. He’s just being his self, trying to add in humor that is quite frankly, not needed nor is it appreciated. This kind of humor ruins the film and is simply not suitable for any depiction of The Alamo.

Wills made an ugly AF promo attempt for a Best Supporting Oscar and somehow received a nomination (Harvey should have been nominated instead, Wayne thought). Wills famously said in his print advertisement, “The Alamo cast is praying harder than the real Texans prayed for their lives at the Alamo for Chill Wills to win the Oscar,” which rubbed A LOT of people the wrong way, as was warranted. Luckily for those people, he didn’t win.

Fun Fact #3: As a means of escaping the stereotype of a mere song and dance man, Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to audition for the minute role of the Black slave. However, because he was seeing a white woman, Wayne suspected that the backers would pull out and so he wasn’t cast. Such a pity because Davis ended up doing a few guest appearances on popular 60s Western television shows and in addition to being a great gunslinger, he was one of the fastest draws in Hollywood.

Drawing of a mustache that curls outward on both ends

What completely puzzles me regarding the screenplay and direction of The Alamo is that Wayne and his close friend James Edward Grant decided to put a story of this nature on screen. There is so much cringe humor, that ridiculous romantic subplot that thoroughly could have deleted a minimum of twenty minutes of the film, and all the time consuming dialogue largely detracts from the goods.

If you’re recounting the Alamo version where it’s more about American patriotism, self sacrifice in a glorious battle, and have a billion dollars to spend and actors (7000 extras, 1500 horses, and 400 Texan longhorn cattle), why don’t you concentrate on THE BATTLE? This is certainly not the sentiment I envisioned from John Wayne interpreting this essential part of American history.

The battle sequences are well done. Like, every time these people engage in combat, whether it is forton the siege, hand to hand combat, or the skirmishing, it is great footage. Unlike the script, the set is said to have taken two years to build and was carefully crafted with historic detail and has been used in more than one hundred other Westerns.

But still, it all feels artificial and extended, plus the score is continuously trying to push this happy story from behind which does not blend well.

That’s exactly why The Alamo was the fifth highest grossing movie of 1960, yet it never made back its budget. For Wayne, it took over a decade to recoup his personal investment by selling the TV rights in 1971. He only ever broke even then.

For a classic unintentionally absurd John Wayne Western, check out The War Wagon. If you prefer a superb John Wayne western war movie, check out Rio Grande. The bottom line is that you can as well get a lot better alternative than The Alamo by simply throwing a dart at any John Wayne DVD box set.

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