The Alamo (1960)

John Wayne treated The Alamo (1960) as his dream project. The Duke spent over 15 years trying to get money and industry clout to retell Texas's War for Independence. The project was so long in gestation that an early script became The Last Command (1955) with Sterling Hayden. Wayne accrued a $12,000,000 budget mixing personal funds with backing from Texas donors, building a massive set in Brackettville, Texas, and directing the film himself. Critics excoriated the movie, not the least for an obnoxious campaign that claimed real Americans would nominate it for Oscars. Despite disappointing box office, it's become a perennial John Wayne favorite.

The Alamo is watchable despite its sprawling excesses. One doesn't begrudge Wayne's conservative politics: if Kirk Douglas injected progressive content into Spartacus, why can't the Duke make an ode to Americanism? The problem isn't Wayne's worldview but his slapdash presentation; such a massive production would be taxing for a veteran director, let alone a freshman like Wayne.

In 1836, Texas rebels against General Antonio de Santa Anna's repressive Mexican government. As Santa Anna's armies invade Texas, Sam Houston (Richard Boone) assigns Colonel William Travis (Laurence Harvey) to fight a holding action at the Alamo, a small mission in San Antonio. Travis gathers militia headed by Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark) and Tennessean Davy Crockett (John Wayne), but it's still fewer than 200 men against 7,000 crack Mexican troops. The leaders clash as they determine how to fight Santa Anna, but ultimately decide their cause supersedes personal disagreements.

The Alamo functions as Texas's creation myth. Texans still hold it as sacred, with any questioning blasphemy: remember Hank Hill freaking out over a twig boy playwright's reworking of the story? Historians know the Texans rebelled for various reasons, from Mexican high-handedness to their abolition of slavery. It's undeniable that Santa Anna was an unscrupulous dictator whose power plays (eleven non-consecutive terms as President!) and despotism ravaged Mexico and Texas alike. Certainly the compelling siege format and larger-than-life heroes with undeniable courage make for an epic saga.

Historical accuracy isn't the point. Wayne intended The Alamo as his definitive statement on America. Hence the endless harangues about truth, justice and the American Way. Crockett monologues about the beauty of republics, a very Reaganite homily. Bowie crudely espouses rugged individualism, reinforced by minor characters like blind Mrs. Robinson (Veda Ann Borg). Crockett even reframes the Domino Theory for the 1830s: if we don't stop Santa Anna at San Antonio, he'll soon be in Nashville! Travis's "line in the sand" boils history down to reactionary myth: America is under siege, and you're with us or them.

The human side gets lost amidst the speech-making. Writer James Lee Grant frames character conflicts in crude, one-note fashion. Tough guy Bowie locks horns with the dapper Travis, with Crockett mediating between them, a dynamic unchanging throughout. Crockett's romance with a Mexican widow (Linda Cristal) peters out before it begins. Worse, Crockett's accompanied by an insufferable gaggle of hicks, whose drunken antics bog down the early scenes. The Mexicans get no characterization, though Wayne praises them as "fighting men."

The Alamo pays off 90 minutes of throat-clearing with impressive action scenes. This is what audiences want! Working with William H. Clothier and second unit veteran Cliff Lyons, Wayne provides stirring battles of massed volleying, crashing horse falls and thundering, body-hurling explosions. He smartly builds the action from brawls and sorties to the cast-of-thousands finale, providing stylish deaths for the three protagonists. Finally, Dimitri Tiomkin complements the action with a beautiful score. The Alamo succeeds as spectacle even if its drama proves uneven.

Actor Wayne plays Crockett as both a font of "homespun wisdom" and two-fisted hero. Hearing his verbose speeches, one imagines Wayne relishing the chance to hit back at condescending liberals who dismissed him as an inarticulate fossil. That said, in crunch time the Duke is an action star: he unhorses Mexican cavalry barehanded and keeps fighting even after being lanced in the chest. With the weight of a country on his shoulders, Wayne becomes a mythic superhero.

Richard Widmark makes a fine tough guy, his six-barreled scattergun toppling Mexicans like bowling pins. But Laurence Harvey's presence is near-inexplicable: why's the pretty boy Brit from Expresso Bongo playing a Texan? More inexplicable is how the obnoxious Chill Wills wangled an Oscar nod, or why singer Frankie Avalon plays a prominent supporting role. Wayne drags along the Ford Stock Company: Denver Pyle, Ken Curtis, Hank Worden, Olive Carey and Jack Pennick all appear. Richard Boone "guest stars" as Sam Houston; the appealing Linda Cristal (Two Rode Together) disappears just as the plot kicks off.

The Alamo remains a flawed but enjoyable historical epic. Viewers who don't cotton to Wayne's right-wing bloviating can still enjoy the rousing battles. For all its crudeness, it's undeniably entertaining.