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
Release date(s)	October 24, 1960
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 General 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.

Contents 1 Production 2 Response 3 History vs. fiction 4 Different versions 5 References 6 Additional Reading 7 See also 8 External links

[edit] Production

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. Virtually nothing of Ford's footage was used, but Ford is often erroneously described as an uncredited co-director.)^[1]

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.

The film was shot largely on an extensive three quarter-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.

A decades-in-the-making labor of love for Wayne, The Alamo was an expensive and challenging undertaking, particularly for a first-time director. Wayne had hoped only to direct and produce, but he was unable to enlist financial support for the project without the presumptive box-office guarantee his on-screen appearance would provide.

Various obstacles faced the production, most tragic of which was the murder of bit player LeJean Eldridge in a domestic dispute during the course of filming. Another mishap was when Laurence Harvey forgot the fact that a firing cannon has a recoil: during the scene in which, as Travis, he fires such a weapon at a Mexican messenger, the artillery piece came down on his foot, breaking it — he did however refrain from screaming out in pain until after Wayne had called "Cut!". Wayne described that as being "a professional." ^[2]

Harvey was chosen because Wayne admired British actors whose work had mainly been on the stage and he wanted some "British class". When production became tense, Harvey would entertain with lines from Shakespeare spoken in a Texan accent. ^[2]

Sammy Davis, Jr. asked Wayne if he could have the part of the slave as he wanted to break out of song and dance comedy. Some of the producers blocked the move, apparently because Davis was then dating white actress May Britt. ^[2]

By all accounts from his cast and crew, Wayne was an intelligent and gifted director, despite a weakness for the long-winded dialog of his favorite screenwriter, James Edward Grant.^[3] Actors such as Widmark also complained that Wayne would try to tell them how to play their parts, which sometimes went against their interpretation of the characters. ^[2]

[edit] Response

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.

Critical response was mixed, from the New York Herald-Tribune's four-star rated "A magnificent job...Visually and dramatically, The Alamo is top-flight," to Time Magazine's "flat as Texas."^[4] Leonard Maltin criticized the script as being "full of historical name-dropping and speechifying," but praised the climactic battle scene.

The film is thought to have been denied 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 cast was praying harder for Chill Wills to win his award than the defenders of the Alamo themselves prayed the night before the battle. The ad, placed by Wills personally, reportedly angered Wayne, who took out an ad of his own deploring Wills's tastelessness. In response to Mr. Wills' ad, claiming that all the voters were his "Alamo Cousins," Groucho Marx took out a small ad which simply said, "Dear Mr. Wills, I am delighted to be your Alamo cousin, but I voted for Sal Mineo," (Wills' rival nominee for Exodus). ^[5]

The film's cost, more than poor attendance, was at the root of its initial presumed failure, and indeed, it has retained popularity with many people. The soundtrack album has been in print continuously for nearly fifty years. References to The Alamo show up with some frequency in various spoofs or homages. Mad Magazine did a spoof of the movie. 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 with an excessive running time. The movie An American Werewolf in London contains an extended bit of dialogue about The Alamo. The movie Viva Max!, shot at the actual Alamo in San Antonio, makes numerous comedic references to the Wayne film.

[edit] History vs. fiction

This section does not cite any references or sources. (March 2008) Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

A considerable amount of the film is at variance with known or presumed history, though this is certainly more a case of choice than ignorance, as great pains were taken to faithfully represent other details.

• In the film, William Travis and Jim Bowie often quarrel over authority and command. Travis and Bowie actually only argued twice; once when a drunken Bowie released two of his men from imprisonment 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. However, Bowie's wife had died well before the siege, in September 1833.

• Travis is shown in the film to be an unlikeable 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 cannon shell wounds him in the 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 leading 32 frontiersmen from Tennessee; actually, the real number of men he led was around a 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, who is never alluded to in the photoplay. {Note:There is a question if "Sam" ever existed-see Notes 16 & 17 {Reference only}

• The climactic final attack is slightly inaccurate. The film has the battle beginning shortly after sunrise. However, the true time of the initial assault is 5:30 AM, a sensibly considerable amount of time before full daylight.

• The movie features a charge by Mexican cavalry overrunning David Crockett's position; in fact the Mexican cavalry did charge, but only to cut off and kill an unknown number of defenders who tried to run for their lives.

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

• Davy Crockett's successful dying attempt to blow up the powder magazine is a dramatic invention, since Susanna Dickinson (who appears as a character in the film) stated that she saw Crockett's body in the plaza. However, one Alamo defender, Bob Evans, did reportedly attempt to blow the magazine but was shot before he could do so. In reality, no one succeeded in setting off the powder.

• In the movie, after James Bonham rides in to the Alamo after the first attack by the Mexicans, he states that Fannin and his men had been ambushed and murdered, but in fact Fannin and his men were killed on March 27, 1836, 21 days after the Alamo had fallen.^[6]

• The movie was shot near Brackettville, west of San Antonio, and therefore has a barren landscape appearance. In reality, San Antonio has substantial woodlands and vegetation.

• In the film after being mortally wounded Travis breaks his sword rather than surrender it whole to the enemy; in fact although he at times carried a sword, the weapon he used in the last fight was a shotgun.

[edit] Different versions

Like so many United Artists films of the 1960s, The Alamo was severely cut for wide release. The film premiered at its 70mm roadshow length of 202 minutes, including overture, intermission, and exit music. Following its L.A. premiere, UA re-edited the film to 167 minutes for general wide release. In the mid-1990s, a private Canadian film collector discovered what was believed to be the last surviving print of the 70mm premiere version--at the time, it was in pristine condition. MGM (UA's sister studio) used this print to make a digital video transfer of the roadshow version for VHS and LaserDisc release. Following this issue, the print was taken apart and improperly stored in an archive. As a result, what was believed to be the only extant film footage of the missing scenes has now deteriorated. As of 2007, the once presumably lost celluloid footage is again unavailable in any useful form. MGM therefore chose to release the shorter General Release Version for DVD. In the meantime, the only existing version of the original uncut roadshow release is on digital video only. It is the source for recent cable television broadcasts on Turner Classic Movies. The best available actual film elements are of the 35mm negatives of the General Release version.

The musical score includes an overture, and musical intermission included in the film; both are usually omitted from TV broadcasts.

[edit] References

[edit] Additional Reading

• Clark, Donald, & Christopher P. Andersen. John Wayne's The Alamo: The Making of the Epic Film (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1995) ISBN 0-8065-1625-9
• Farnsworth, Rodney. "John Wayne's Epic of Contradictions: The Aesthetic and Rhetoric of Way and Diversity in The Alamo" Film Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Winter 1998-1999), p. 24 - 34
• [1] "Dust to Dust" by Robert Wilonsky. Dallas Observer, August 9, 2001

[edit] See also

• The Alamo: other uses
• The Alamo (2004 film)
• List of films recut by studio

[edit] External links

• The Alamo at the Internet Movie Database
• Filming Location