The Alamo (1960)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.20:1 167/192m
Director: John Wayne
Cast: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Richard Boone
Synopsis:
1836: as General Santa Anna seeks to impose punitive measures on the Mexican province of Texas, freedom fighters fight a holding action at a ruined mission called the Alamo while General Houston rallies forces to the north. Texans under the leadership of Jim Bowie prove an insubordinate challenge to the authority of the slightly priggish Colonel Travis, but mediation comes in the shape of Davy Crockett and his Tennessee rednecks.
Review:
One of the first Hollywood productions to be helmed by an actor, this has emerged from decades of televisual re-runs that dwarfed its stature to qualify as a decisive artistic triumph. Wayne's painterly compositions, Tiomkin's characteristically dynamic score and William H. Clothier's 70mm cinematography are particularly worthy of mention - hardly a single shot does not resemble a carefully mounted production still - but this is no succession of static tableaux either: the Duke manages some striking multi-plane action and mobile camera shots, too. True, early on there are two or three scenes that tail away unsatisfactorily into a fade-out, but this may have something to do with the range of differently edited versions around. The romantic subplot with Flaca might well have been dispensed with altogether, so little does it bear on the action that follows, and the amount of time spent keg-tugging is perhaps one unnecessary nod in the direction of Ford, given the limited time available for fortifying the mission. But these are glancing blows on the film's impeccable grasp of its mythic agenda: quite simply, as they found to their doom in 2004, this was the only way to do the Alamo.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.20:1 167/192m
Director: John Wayne
Cast: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Richard Boone
Synopsis:
1836: as General Santa Anna seeks to impose punitive measures on the Mexican province of Texas, freedom fighters fight a holding action at a ruined mission called the Alamo while General Houston rallies forces to the north. Texans under the leadership of Jim Bowie prove an insubordinate challenge to the authority of the slightly priggish Colonel Travis, but mediation comes in the shape of Davy Crockett and his Tennessee rednecks.
Review:
One of the first Hollywood productions to be helmed by an actor, this has emerged from decades of televisual re-runs that dwarfed its stature to qualify as a decisive artistic triumph. Wayne's painterly compositions, Tiomkin's characteristically dynamic score and William H. Clothier's 70mm cinematography are particularly worthy of mention - hardly a single shot does not resemble a carefully mounted production still - but this is no succession of static tableaux either: the Duke manages some striking multi-plane action and mobile camera shots, too. True, early on there are two or three scenes that tail away unsatisfactorily into a fade-out, but this may have something to do with the range of differently edited versions around. The romantic subplot with Flaca might well have been dispensed with altogether, so little does it bear on the action that follows, and the amount of time spent keg-tugging is perhaps one unnecessary nod in the direction of Ford, given the limited time available for fortifying the mission. But these are glancing blows on the film's impeccable grasp of its mythic agenda: quite simply, as they found to their doom in 2004, this was the only way to do the Alamo.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.20:1 167/192m
Director: John Wayne
Cast: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Richard Boone
Synopsis:
1836: as General Santa Anna seeks to impose punitive measures on the Mexican province of Texas, freedom fighters fight a holding action at a ruined mission called the Alamo while General Houston rallies forces to the north. Texans under the leadership of Jim Bowie prove an insubordinate challenge to the authority of the slightly priggish Colonel Travis, but mediation comes in the shape of Davy Crockett and his Tennessee rednecks.
Review:
One of the first Hollywood productions to be helmed by an actor, this has emerged from decades of televisual re-runs that dwarfed its stature to qualify as a decisive artistic triumph. Wayne's painterly compositions, Tiomkin's characteristically dynamic score and William H. Clothier's 70mm cinematography are particularly worthy of mention - hardly a single shot does not resemble a carefully mounted production still - but this is no succession of static tableaux either: the Duke manages some striking multi-plane action and mobile camera shots, too. True, early on there are two or three scenes that tail away unsatisfactorily into a fade-out, but this may have something to do with the range of differently edited versions around. The romantic subplot with Flaca might well have been dispensed with altogether, so little does it bear on the action that follows, and the amount of time spent keg-tugging is perhaps one unnecessary nod in the direction of Ford, given the limited time available for fortifying the mission. But these are glancing blows on the film's impeccable grasp of its mythic agenda: quite simply, as they found to their doom in 2004, this was the only way to do the Alamo.