Last Night at the Alamo

Steve Mattilla is amazing in this film. His portrayal of Ichabod is the epitome of physical acting. I loved this film and I think that anyone who longs for their wine and roses days (or their beer and beer nuts days,) will feel a twinge of pain at the demise of the Alamo.

The Last Night At the Alamo is a GREAT movie. It took me forever to find it but when I did I was not disappointed. I have heard and read about it and many people have said that its a Texas classic. I had to buy it off EBAY and I had tried 3 times before only to outbid by 100$. That shows you how bad some people wanted this rare treasure. This movie had a very simple plot that anyone who has ever stepped foot in a bar can relate to. Its in black and white to give you that old western kind of a feel. Overall a great movie I just wish there was a way the video could be more distributed. If I am correct this movie is out of print and can only be bought or located by people who are willing to sell the video. If you stumble upon it buy it.

I have often sat in a bar, as depicted in this film, just to observe the action (I'm the quiet guy at the end of the bar with his back to the wall, nursing his drink). The wonderful thing about this movie is it's realism. It takes you there without actually being there. You become that voyeuristic 'fly on the wall'. I will often come to imdb after watching a film to read member comments. At present there are 5 listed. I couldn't agree more with all of them. Well said. How gratifying when you find others that share your view. The characterizations and acting are superb. A wonderful ensemble production with both the writer and director appearing. Thanks for a great film. Somebody is missing the boat by not having this film out on dvd/vhs. Watch for it on IFC and be prepared to tape, you might want to share.

My review was written in October 1983 after a screening at the New York Film Festival.

"Last Night at the Alamo" is a low-budget Texas film that boasts a lot of actors' energy but lacks the cinematic style to let it escape from he specialized category. With nearly all the action set in a small Houston bar, pic perilously recalls a Southern-fried "Iceman Cometh".

Filmmakers Eagle Pennell and Kim Henkel (latter a co-scripter of Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") are fans of "The Wild Bunch", but what they have taken from that film is not its style or themes but rather the folksy, vibrant dialog of Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah. This gives "Alamo" considerable verbal texture, as characters carry on in local argot or cha about clothing bought at the "Monkey Ward's" department store.

Opening reel is so densely packed with four-letter expletives that the initially disarming device becomes tiresome. So, too, do the players, declaiming endlessly in the pipe dreams and complaints manner of barflies. Ichabod (Steve Matilla) is a scrawny young man, shooting pool, picking fights and trying to scoot his gal Mary (Tina-Bess Hubbard) off to the nearest hot-sheets motel. Claude (Louis Perryman) is a loud and foul-mouthed guy with wife trouble, constantly (and tediously) on the phone at the Alamo bar.

A late arrival is made by Cowboy Regan (Sonny Carl Davis), a smug, egocentric guy who believes he can "save" the Alamo, which has been sold by its owner and is due for immediate demolition to make way for high-rise buildings, appealing by phone to his old college roommate and now a state representative. Though he beats up an old high school rival Steve (J. Michael Hammond) who dares to doubt this claim, the effort to save the bar is, of course, just another pipe dream.

Director Pennell errs in shooting his film in a style reminiscent of live tv drama in the 1950s: low-key (for high contrast) lighting in black and white and claustrophobic framing (such as a foreground head, typically Claude's on the phone, dominating mid-ground action). Cumulative effect is oppressive. His actors are on too long a leash, with Louis Perryman's initially entertaining explosive swearing routine ending up sounding like a Steve Landesburg stand-up parody of a "good ole boy" dialect.

Lead player Davis, a balding young actor resembling Robert Duvall and Robert Stack, carries much of the picture by underplaying compared to the rest of the cast. Steven Matilla as "don't call me Ichabod" is quite funny in small doses and scripter Henkel has written himself in a cute John Sayles-esque deadpan role as Lionel, so laconic a critter that everyone else has to tell his personal anecdotes for him. The women's roles are seriously underwritten.

Tech credits are acceptable, though he direct sound recorded dialect gets a bit thick during some of the shouting matches.

I was lucky enough to catch this on the Independent Film Channel, thinking it was a different film entirely. Within a few minutes, I was engrossed.

It seemed from the very beginning that I was watching real people, not actors; that someone was just filming what happened to be going on. The fact that several of the actors have no other credits besides Last Night At the Alamo bears out this theory.

These are real people with real jobs, real lives and real problems. You can go to any dank bar in America and find exactly the same people you're watching, here, and they'll act exactly the same way. They come in, tell lame stories, posture for each other, and get drunker and stupider as the night goes on.

The byplay between Cowboy and Claude was interesting; it felt like a seduction, at times. It would have added a new dimension to the film if Cowboy had actually been trying to put the moves on his friend, but the filmmakers copped out on that one.

As more and more characters showed up at the bar, I started to think that Cowboy didn't even exist, and I'd been suckered into a drunken version of 'Waiting for Godot'. When he did show up, I immediately began to wonder exactly why he was so popular with the patrons - and believe me, there's a guy like that in EVERY bar.

It's difficult to describe the rest; the concept was so simple, it boils down into very few words. It looks like this film hasn't been released to the home market, yet, so I'll have to keep my eyes open and tape it, next time it comes around. I suggest you do the same.