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It reminds me of a 1970s miniseries. Even the music score sounds like it was from the 70s, except for the Rawhide part when the kid was riding quickly in the first installment. Silly dialog. Who is this Emily West?
She is the "Yellow Rose of Texas," a.k.a. Emily Morgan.
We've been fantasizing about making an Alamo video of our own, just for the fun of it, with the best clips from all the movies put together, in sequence. Nowadays the technology is there--it could be done!
Sterling Hayden was a really powerful Jim Bowie in The Last Command. Billy Bob was a fabulous Crockett in the 2004 movie, but I thought the rest of the movie was kind of soulless. John Wayne's Alamo was certainly not his best movie, but it still has "something"! Despite being inaccurate, and full of talk, it captures the spirit of the story in a way that no other movie has done for me. The music was so stirring, and you can tell that the Duke really believed he was telling a story for the ages. He mortgaged everything he had just to put it into production. That kind of passion lives on...
I will never bash the Duke!
It was said that he went to great lengths to recreate an exact replica of the Alamo, outbuildings and all.
The Jockomo character was a little over the top, but I am sure there were quite a few raw countrymen like him at the Alamo.
The Thornton Crockett was great. I think that movie was better in terms of the geography and grittiness of the battle scenes, particularly the final siege.
The letters that were written and read on screen were for the most part pretty accurate according to what I have seen of them.
Guess I never knew that both Billy Bob and Crockett were such good fiddle players. Lol
"What are the lives of soldiers, but so many chickens". Great Santa Anna line!
We gave up after the first hour. Yup, where in Southern/SE Texas do you get those impressive desert escarpments? So many goofs and goofy details that never happened. And they couldn't even get the Alamo date right. No, it wasn't March 7, it was March 6. Does it matter? Yes, if they want to present the show as the big, epic true story of Texas. So this is just one of many TV movies doing a shoddy job of depicting well-known historic events under the guise of "being inspired by true events," or whatever the disclaimer was in the beginning. Notice how upset people get over on the Game of Thrones thread when the TV show departs from the books? We should get really upset over this mangling of a historically significant time.
The only redeeming quality, IMO, was that Deaf Smith is finally elevated to hero status. A good guy, and very well portrayed.
Same here. We stopped after the first hour. So many actors I like, but I thought the dialogue was terrible and acting stiff. And the topography depicted in the scenes drove me crazy. The San Antonio area is not like that. In fact, only a very, very small portion of Texas has topography like that.
Oh well, maybe I will go back and reread my big brown book from 7th grade (if you are from Texas and over 35, you know what I'm talking about).
John Wayne's Alamo was certainly not his best movie, but it still has "something"! Despite being inaccurate, and full of talk, it captures the spirit of the story in a way that no other movie has done for me. The music was so stirring, and you can tell that the Duke really believed he was telling a story for the ages. He mortgaged everything he had just to put it into production. That kind of passion lives on...
I'm an Alamo buff, read every book available, seen every movie.
With regard to Wayne's film capturing the spirit of the story, it actually captured John Wayne's rather simplistic and one sided concept of patriotism. We learned nothing at all about the Mexican side of things, the enemy was faceless and only referenced as subjugating Texican liberties. Wayne of course makes no mention at all that one of those "liberties" was the right to own slaves.
The 2004 film was not precisely accurate, but by far the most accurate of any of the screen depictions. It is the only one which correctly shows that the assault took place in the early morning dark and caught the defenders by surprise. The Wayne film has two assaults (there was only one) both in full daylight. (If you watch very carefully, you'll notice the same three Mexican attackers are killed by an artillery blast in both assaults..oops.)
Wayne's film also depicts Bowie as perfectly healthy until the day before the final assault when he gets his leg injured, forcing him into bed. In truth Bowie became ill at the start of the siege and was bedridden throughout. Wayne the director had three different scenes where an actor looks straight into the camera and delivers an impromptu lecture on the virtues of freedom and religious belief.
The 2004 film also is the only one to include information which placed Colonels Travis and Bowie in a light which included their faults. Bowie was a land swindler and illegal slave dealer. Travis was in Texas because he abandoned his wife and child in order to escape debt.
Something I found interesting..in Disney's Davy Crockett, "The Last Command", Wayne's "The Alamo" and in the late eighties tv flick "Alamo: Thirteen Days of Glory", the same incident is depicted. It was Crockett leading a small group of Alamo defenders on a mission outside of the fort to sabotage Santa Anna's heavy artillery piece, or pieces. They are successful in the mission and make it back to the fort unharmed.
Nothing like that took place in the actual siege. Santa Anna had no heavy artillery, only nine and twelve pound Napoleon field guns. It seems as though the flicks were all borrowing a legend created by Disney in the Fess Parker show and treating it as real.
We've watched all of it so far and plan on watching the rest of it. I enjoy period pieces of any sort - and this is pretty good. It is awfully violent - but it was then too. So help me though, every time I see the "half-breed" all I can think about is him being in George of the Jungle years ago. How did you guys like his 16 year old son - with 2 scalps already? I'm guessing he won't be father of the year any time soon!!!! It's a historical fiction - probably loosely based on fact - but it is enjoyable, IMHO!!!!!
We've watched all of it so far and plan on watching the rest of it. I enjoy period pieces of any sort - and this is pretty good. It is awfully violent - but it was then too. So help me though, every time I see the "half-breed" all I can think about is him being in George of the Jungle years ago. How did you guys like his 16 year old son - with 2 scalps already? I'm guessing he won't be father of the year any time soon!!!! It's a historical fiction - probably loosely based on fact - but it is enjoyable, IMHO!!!!!
I think Brendan Fraser is doing his Encino Man accent in Texas Rising.
I'm an Alamo buff, read every book available, seen every movie.
With regard to Wayne's film capturing the spirit of the story, it actually captured John Wayne's rather simplistic and one sided concept of patriotism. We learned nothing at all about the Mexican side of things, the enemy was faceless and only referenced as subjugating Texican liberties. Wayne of course makes no mention at all that one of those "liberties" was the right to own slaves.
The 2004 film was not precisely accurate, but by far the most accurate of any of the screen depictions. It is the only one which correctly shows that the assault took place in the early morning dark and caught the defenders by surprise. The Wayne film has two assaults (there was only one) both in full daylight. (If you watch very carefully, you'll notice the same three Mexican attackers are killed by an artillery blast in both assaults..oops.)
Wayne's film also depicts Bowie as perfectly healthy until the day before the final assault when he gets his leg injured, forcing him into bed. In truth Bowie became ill at the start of the siege and was bedridden throughout. Wayne the director had three different scenes where an actor looks straight into the camera and delivers an impromptu lecture on the virtues of freedom and religious belief.
The 2004 film also is the only one to include information which placed Colonels Travis and Bowie in a light which included their faults. Bowie was a land swindler and illegal slave dealer. Travis was in Texas because he abandoned his wife and child in order to escape debt.
Something I found interesting..in Disney's Davy Crockett, "The Last Command", Wayne's "The Alamo" and in the late eighties tv flick "Alamo: Thirteen Days of Glory", the same incident is depicted. It was Crockett leading a small group of Alamo defenders on a mission outside of the fort to sabotage Santa Anna's heavy artillery piece, or pieces. They are successful in the mission and make it back to the fort unharmed.
Nothing like that took place in the actual siege. Santa Anna had no heavy artillery, only nine and twelve pound Napoleon field guns. It seems as though the flicks were all borrowing a legend created by Disney in the Fess Parker show and treating it as real.
I recognize a certain revisionist view of the Alamo story that has been prevalent in some circles since the 1970s. Nothing wrong with that, it is healthy to switch perspectives and see things from different angles--but let's not go overboard. The Duke's movie actually throws in several complimentary remarks about the Mexican army and its courage; it is not supposed to be an anti-Mexico movie, but an anti-tyranny movie. The bad guy is Santa Anna (who really was a brutal SOB), not the Mexican soldiers. That element is often overlooked by critics who jump to conclusions about Wayne's attitude. If you want to speculate about that motive, it was probably because Wayne also wanted to movie to play in Mexico. But it also allows him to point out universal traits to be admired. And yes, the movie is full of inaccuracies, such as Bowie's health. It's part of the time period to shy away from depicting a hero as sick. Of course that has changed since then.
And the "preachifying," sure, that's part of the movie, too. John Ford would have been the first to tell Wayne that it is poor form to give a speech to the camera (let's be accurate--not exactly looking into the camera). "If you have a message, use Western Union." But Wayne had a message he wanted delivered, and truthfully, those are the scenes, other than the battle scenes, that people remember. I can recite all three scenes for you, and I have known them by heart for many, many years...And yet, perhaps the finest scene is one of few words. The night before the final assault everybody is sitting around the campfires, in a somber mood, and a Tennessean asks Crockett what he is thinking, And Wayne says, "Not thinkin'...just rememberin'. Now that's good writing.
The 2004 movie was (as I pointed out in an earlier post) the most accurate depiction of the Alamo event so far, but was it a good movie? Not really, because we ended up not really caring about anybody except for Crockett, who was a three-dimensional character, contrary to the rest. The movie was so busy getting everything right that it forgot to tell a story. And do we really need to include details about how un-PC these characters really were, just to satisfy our cynicism? Is it just a way to make ourselves feel better because our heroes weren't so heroic after all? That leads to a very long discussion about hero worship which there is (thankfully) no space for here .
Getting back to Texas Rising. When you start a Texas epic by having killed off three of the most important characters before the movie even begins, there's something seriously wrong with the concept!
And do we really need to include details about how un-PC these characters really were, just to satisfy our cynicism? Is it just a way to make ourselves feel better because our heroes weren't so heroic after all? That leads to a very long discussion about hero worship which there is (thankfully) no space for here .
You employ the plural "we" and "our" as though there is some correct state of mind, a perfect balance between treating us as adults who can handle reality or treating us as children who are in need of a romanticized view of life.
My preference in a historical film is to be treated as an adult and I hardly associate that with cynicism. It is as though you are equating reality with automatic cynicism. Do you feel a need to have history sanitized and repackaged for you by Hollywood? I suspect that you will say no and I wonder if you recognize that this is your defacto advocacy when supporting the Wayne style distortions.
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