The Alamo (1960 film)

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The Alamo
original film poster
Directed by	John Wayne
Produced by	John Wayne
Written by	James Edward Grant
Starring	John Wayne Richard Widmark Laurence Harvey
Music by	Dimitri Tiomkin
Cinematography	William H. Clothier
Distributed by	United Artists
Running time	202 min. (roadshow version); 167 min. (general release version)
Country	US
Language	English Spanish
Budget	$12,000,000 est.
IMDb profile

The Alamo was released in 1960 by United Artists, starring John Wayne as Davy Crockett, Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey as William B. Travis, and featuring Frankie Avalon, Chill Wills, Patrick Wayne, Linda Cristal, Joseph Calleia as Juan Seguin, Ruben Padilla as Santa Anna, Richard Boone as Sam Houston, Ken Curtis, Hank Worden, and Denver Pyle. It was photographed in 70 mm Todd-AO by William H. Clothier. The subject of the movie is the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.

The movie was written by James Edward Grant and directed by John Wayne. (Wayne's mentor John Ford showed up uninvited on the set and attempted to back-seat drive the film. Wayne sent him off to shoot second unit footage in order to maintain his own authority on the set. None of Ford's footage was used, but Ford is often erroneously described as an uncredited co-director.) The film was shot largely on an extensive full-scale replica of the mission near Brackettville, Texas constructed specifically for the movie. The set, now called Alamo Village, has since been used in over 100 other westerns, including depictions of the 1836 battle. Wayne had lobbied the Republic studio, previously known mostly for B-westerns, to make a full-budget epic about the Battle of the Alamo. Republic turned him down and Wayne personally financed much of the budget. The film tells a highly romanticized, hagiographic version of events, in which the defenders are all portrayed as larger-than-life martyrs, and none of the Mexican characters are developed in depth. Critic Leonard Maltin has described the script as being "full of historical name-dropping and speechifying," but notes that the climactic battle scene is spectacular. A considerable amount of the film is inaccurate. Such scenes include:

In the film, William Travis and Jim Bowie often quarrel over authority and command. This is popular legend, but many legends are proven to be false -- this legend is no exception. Travis and Bowie actually only argued twice; once being when a drunken Bowie released two of his men from the prison when they'd been ordered there by Travis himself, and the second time being when, on the first day of the two-week siege, both Travis and Bowie assumed command and sent out independent negotiating teams with unsatisfactory results. (A similar scene is featured in the movie when Bowie and Crockett lead some volunteers to destroy a dangerous cannon, resulting in an angry dispute between Travis and Bowie that leads them to arrange for a duel once the war is over.) [In the movie, after Bowie gets word of his wife's death, Travis and Bowie seem to tolerate each other more, indicating the two may have come to a peaceful understanding of each other before they both died during battle. However, Bowie's wife had died well before the siege, in September 1833.]

Travis is shown in the film to be an unlikable snob, and his pretentious, articulate way of speaking is deliberately (and unfavorably) presented in stark contrast to everyone else's plain and direct way of speaking. There is no real historical basis for this.

Jim Bowie is prominently seen actively taking part in the action until a stray cannonball fragment wounds his leg, and he is disabled and taken into the chapel. In reality, Bowie was ill (some sources state that he either had typhoid fever or dysentery) throughout the siege and took no part in the actual fighting. (Indeed, a few historians believe that Bowie may have died from his sickness shortly before or during the final battle, although the majority of historians reject this and state he went down fighting with his Bowie Knife.)

Crockett is shown heading 32 frontiersmen from Tennessee; actually, the real number of men he led was around a baker's dozen, only two of whom he'd known personally for very long.

The correct name of Bowie's slave is Sam, not Jethro. Travis, in history, also had a slave named Joe, but he never is featured in the photoplay.

The climactic final attack, while truly one of the greatest ever in cinema, is slightly inaccurate. The film has the battle happening in either late morning or around noon. However, the true time of the initial assault is 5:30 AM, a sensibly considerable amount of time before the sun is completely out.

Travis is shown being shot in the right lung and dying from that wound. However, most witnesses state that he was shot in the head, including his slave Joe.

Also, the idea of Davy Crockett going up in a blaze of glory by blowing up the powder magazine room doesn't seem to hold water, since Susanna Dickinson (who appears in the film) stated that she saw Crockett's body in the plaza. However, the idea of someone blowing up the powder room is not reportedly fictional, since one Alamo defender, Bob Evans, did reportedly attempt it but got shot right before he could torch the magazine. Also the powder room at Gonzales was lit during the battle by some anonymous defender.

The 2004 version got most of these errors correct, and even went so far as to end the story on a positive note, showing Santa Anna's defeat at San Jacinto 6 weeks after his victory at the Alamo.

Though the film had a large box office take, its cost kept it from being considered a success, and Wayne lost his sizable personal investment. He sold his rights in the film to United Artists, which had released it, and ultimately it made back its money. The Alamo won the Academy Award for Sound and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Chill Wills), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Best Music, Song (Dimitri Tiomkin and Paul Francis Webster for The Green Leaves of Summer) and Best Picture.

The film is thought to have been denied winning more awards than the one it got due to an overblown campaign that alienated Academy voters, including one Variety ad that stated, in effect, that the film's producers were praying as hard for Chill Wills to win his award as the defenders of the Alamo themselves prayed the night before the battle (an astonishingly audacious and zany joke, widely misunderstood at the time, if that's what it was). Another ad from Wills himself read: “Win, lose or draw, you're all my cousins and I love you.” This prompted Groucho Marx to post his own advert which read: “Dear Chill Wills. Am happy to be your cousin, but I voted for Sal Mineo”.

[edit] Trivia

The scene in which a Mexican officer delivers Santa Anna's demand for the Alamo's surrender, with the response of a single cannon shot, shows Laurence Harvey (Travis) cooly looking at his co-stars before walking away to complete the scene...and with a slight limp. Harvey forgot the fact that a firing cannon has a recoil, and it came down on his foot, breaking it.

Mad Magazine did a spoof of the movie.

For several years, the Alamo Theater in San Antonio, Texas played The Alamo repeatedly.

The Alamo is mentioned by Vic Fontaine (James Darren) in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". The singer describes it as having great battle scenes and nice sets, but that its running time was too long.