The Alamo
1960
Action / Adventure / Drama / History / War / Western
The Alamo
1960
Action / Adventure / Drama / History / War / Western
Plot summary
The legendary true story of a small band of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
For what seems like 13 hours the film
Overwrought, overly-macho take on history
Overwrought, overly-macho take on a very historic event.
Should have been simple enough: tell the story of the Battle of the Alamo with some good, epic action scenes and some character development. The action scenes are there, and are good. However, the character development is quite superficial: there are no shades of grey. Travis is a martinet, Crockett and Bowie are one-dimensional, anarchic, uber- hero adventurers.
Moreover, director John Wayne and writer James Edward Grant add in several sub-plots which have no bearing on the story. Yes, some are there to add some colour to the characters, but they just seem gratuitous and wholly unnecessary.
Acting is almost all of the over-the-top macho variety. John Wayne was always going to be the swaggering hero (that's all he knows), and, as he is director, now he has licence to crank up the swagger. Richard Widmark comes close to matching him in this regard. Only Laurence Harvey, as Travis, plays it straight. Too straight: he comes off as cranky.
Surprisingly, despite all the hammy acting that abounds, this movie got an acting Oscar nomination. Chill Wills was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance as Beekeeper. Probably the most undeserved Oscar nomination in history. Apparently his marketing campaign in attempting to get the Oscar is worth a movie itself...
This all said, this version is still far better than the one from 2004.







