The Alamo

A reviewer

The Alamo was the realization of a years long dream of John Wayne and it shows. From the meticulous recreation of the Alamo compound and San Antonio de Bexar (from original drawings & plans) to authentic period costumes to outstanding casting. The only drawback to production was writer James Edward Grant's script. Another was the later editing that took many of the best scenes. One of which was my favorite: the parson's death scene. I'm looking forward to seeing a DVD special edition of the director's cut along with the trailer and complete featurette.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Disastrous Moment in History Meticulously Recreated

John Wayne¿s conviction was so firmly steeped in his production of 'The Alamo' that he went out on his own to direct this lumbering fictional account of the slaughter of 187 men at the Texas landmark after every major studio in Hollywood turned him down. The resulting film is a sprawling and unabashed flag waver that quite simply fails to get the patriotic juices flowing. Wayne plays Davy Crockett as something of a Disney-fied fun-loving frontiersman who¿s not above a good brawl. Laurence Harvey needs less starch in his britches as the rigid Col. William Travis. Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie is left to veer between Wayne and Harvey in a performance that can only be described as unsympathetic. Richard Boone, Chill Wills and (oh, you gotta be kiddin' me) Frankie Avalon are in it too. Frankie doesn't sing. No expense was spared in this brick-by-brick recreation of the Alamo. The laserdisc version contained the original director's cut of 'The Alamo'. This DVD is the standard theater release version. There's no entrance, exit or intermission music and the aspect ratio is misframed at roughly 2:25:1. Colors are generally rich and vibrant but during scenes taking place at night they tend to become a muddy, grainy mess. The scene in which Crockett is confronted by Travis in the saloon is riddled with age related artifacts and a faded camera negative that looks as though it were dragged by four wild horse through the Texas deluge. The audio is 5.1 but strident in spots and remarkable muffled in others. Extras include ¿The Making Of The Alamo¿ featurette - but it has been edited for DVD - presumably because, like the film, it just was not possible to digitally compress all that information on one side of a DVD. So why didn't MGM do a 2-disc or flipper disc for this film?!?! Go figure. Perhaps with the remake of 'The Alamo' getting ready to debut on DVD we'll see MGM go back to their vaults and revisit this Western saga.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A Grand Spectacle

Forget for a moment that this movie is not as accurate as historians would have liked. What you have then is a grand, colorful, rousing spectacular that serves as the forerunner to movies like ''Saving Private Ryan'' and ''The Patriot.'' What ''The Alamo'' lacks in historical accuracy it more than makes up for in design. The sets, including a re-created Alamo fort and chapel, are spectacular. The uniforms for the Mexican army are elaborate. The script itself is typical John Wayne, and expounds with his personal political philosophies, but the cast is outstanding, with Richard Widmark (as James Bowie) and Lawrence Harvey (as Travis) serving as perfect foils for John Wayne's Davy Crockett, as well as for each other. All in all, this is splendid entertainment, and the Bonus Features, including a 40-minute ''making of'' feature add additional insight into John Wayne and the creation of this classic epic.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

ALAMO

I recently visited the Alamo and wanted to see an older version movie of what happened-this was good.

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