The Alamo (1960)
directed by
written by
written by
John Lee Hancock
We watched both of these last year, so skipped this time around. We're keeping both, as each is a solid movie, flaws and all, about a pivotal point in American history. They could both be more accurate about the root causes of the war - slavery as much as Santana's centralizing dictatorship - but there's no getting around the brutal, heroic stand of the Texican defenders.
Wayne's is the lesser of the two - it's more sentimental and rose-tineted - , but it's got gloriously epic pageantry and makes a surprising effort to honor the Mexican soldiers as brave. It's also filled with patriotic speeches, Mexican dancers, and a fun, but terribly out of place Laurence Harvey as Col. Travis. Wayne as Crockett is simply Wayne, as he too often was. Widmark is always good, but there's little sense of the shady speculator or killer in his version of Jim Bowie. Still, as big war movies go, it's solid enough (and Dmitri Tiomkin's score is excellent).
Hancock's movie strives for greater accuracy, making the three central characters more interesting through their flaws. Jason Patric is good as the drunken and increasingly debilitated Bowie, dreaming all the time of his dead wife. Patrick Wilson is solid as the wife-deserting Travis. Billy Bob Thornton is the best, though, as Crockett. He's good at portraying Crockett's effort to live up to the heroic aspect of his reputation without succumbing to its lures. Unlike Wayne's hagiographic version, Thornton's Crockett is a man caught up in a fight he definitely didn't plan on. He brought his men to Texas hoping to make a dollar and not have to fight any battles. As to Crockett's final moments, it's been a matter for debate since 1836, and it seems most likely he went down fighting, but I like how it's done here and drives home the brutality with which Santa Anna handled the rebellion. The music by Carter Burwell is alright but definitely suffers in comparison to Tiomkin's.
verdict: a pair of keepers
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| Widmark, Wayne, and Harvey |
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| Wilson, Thornton, and Patric |
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