LIST OF MOVIES ABOUT THE ALAMO
LIST OF MOVIES ABOUT THE ALAMO Stephen Harrigan is a novelist (Aransas, 1980) and an Alamophile. Texas Great Writers 1. The Birth of Texas (1915). This movie was recently discovered by a University of Texas film researcher in the basement of a building where it had been mercifully hidden from public viewing for decades. The film was supposedly directed by D.W. Griffith, but was in reality the work of one of his second-unit functionaries. In the movie's most memorable scene, two Alamo defenders, mortally wounded, turn to each other and shake hands before expiring. 2. The Last Command (1955). Starring Sterling Hayden as Jim Bowie. This one features a great theme song ("Wouldn't you/Wanna do/ Like Jim Bowie?") and a Santa Anna (J. Carrol Naish) who is a little on the skinny side. Bowie romances Anna Maria Alberghetti and has a knife fight or two before he ends up in the Alamo. His rival, Travis, is played by Richard (Led Three Lives) Carlson, and a bearded Arthur Hunnicutt plays Davy Crockett. Upon his death, Crockett blows up a cache of gunpowder, a theme picked up by John Wayne five years later in The Alamo. The Last Command is the best movie about the Alamo ever made; unfortunately, it stinks. 3. Davy Crockett (1955). I don't know what it is about this movie, but it gets me every time. Maybe it's the way Georgie Russell (Buddy Ebsen) says his last words —"Give 'em what fer, Davy" —or that last lingering shot of Fess Parker swinging 01' Betsy, swatting the Mexicans like mosquitoes. This is a movie of enduring stupidity. 4. The First Texan (1956). I have only the dimmest memory of this movie. Joel McCrea plays Sam Houston, unmemorably, and the Alamo itself is mentioned only in passing. Still, we do get to meet Davy Crockett, played by a tall actor with a big Adam's apple that caused us kids in the audience to guffaw during his brief appearance. 5. The Alamo (1960). Like The Last Command, The Alamo was filmed in Brackettville, Texas. It is unique among Alamo movies in that it has an authentic set. Most everything else about it is made up out of whole cloth, including Jim Bowie's atomic-powered blunderbuss. The Alamo has great music, including "The Green Leaves of Summer" and "The Ballad of the Alamo," which is the best song ever written about that institution next to "Across the Alley from the Alamo." [Runners-up: "Jimmy the Mexican Soldier (Who Died at the Alamo)" and "Please, Santa Anna (I Don't Wanna Go)," a takeoff of "Please, Mr. Custer"—S. H.] John Wayne, of course, plays Davy Crockett, and he walks around saying things like "Republic. I like the sound of the word." The insufferable Laurence Harvey is cast as the insufferable Travis, and Frankie Avalon, wearing a skunk-skin cap, is the Boy Who Got Away. As Bowie, Richard Widmark makes a strange squawking sound when he is bayoneted on his cot.
6. Viva Max! (1969). The Daughters of the Republic of Texas would not allow the makers of Viva Max! to film inside the Alamo itself, so they had to build a replica in Spain or someplace. This movie was made in the same vein as The Russians Are Coming. It stars Peter Ustinov as a modern-day Mexican general who decides to recapture the Alamo. It's not very funny, and the Daughters were right about it: it's a desecration of hallowed ground.