Alamo

Frank Lloyd's career stretched back to the silent era--he was a major director and made films for the top studios in Hollywood. Winding up at a B studio like Republic would seem to be a step down the career ladder, but this film is actually one of Lloyd's best and one of the best to ever come out of Republic.

The studio didn't often get the services of directors of the calibre of Frank Lloyd--although John Ford and Fritz Lang had occasionally made films there--and it spared no expense on this one. The subject matter demanded a big budget, and Republic didn't stint. Thousands of extras, big sets, spectacular action scenes, robust performances--all combined to make a first-rate action picture. Sterling Hayden makes a good Jim Bowie, the always underrated Arthur Hunnicutt personifies Davy Crockett, and the cast is filled with familiar character actors--Roy Roberts, Slim Pickens, John Russell, Jim Davis--who contribute much to the overall atmosphere of the film. The setpiece of the movie, though, is the final siege of the Alamo itself, and it is spectacular. It compares well to the John Wayne version made five years later, and ranks right up there with the final battle scene in 1964's "Zulu"--expertly edited with top-notch stunt-work and special effects. Very highly recommended.

Forget any adherence to historical facts, directed by Frank Lloyd and with a Warren Duff screenplay, The Last Command is a slow moving piece that uses Jim Bowie as its focal point. Starring Sterling Hayden (Bowie), Richard Carlson (William Travers), Arthur Hunnicutt (Davy Crockett), Ernest Borgnine (Mike Radin), J. Carrol Naish (Santa Ana), and Anna Maria Alberghetti (Consuela), the piece was a project long courted by John Wayne. However, Republic refused to sanction the type of budget the Duke wanted for his vision. So after offering him a nominal fee for a part, he refused and Republic promptly went on to make the film anyway. The final result is an interesting film that finally pays off for those having the patience and tolerance for patriotic flag waving.

The story follows the battle of the Alamo in San Antonio in 1836, where brave Texans gave their life to become free of the Mexican rule, by defending the former mission station against overwhelming odds as the Mexican army of Santa Ana closed in for victory. The final battle is very well staged by Lloyd, and the acting, though not making the earth move, is very competent, particularly Hayden who does a nice line in tortured ruggedness. Max Steiner provides a zippy score and the low budget use of Trucolor doesn't affect the work of cinematographer Jack Marta. Safe and enjoyable as a story telling piece, if ultimately far from being a rousing spectacle fit for that particular part in history. 6/10

Frankly, I don't watch movies expecting to see historical accuracy. Movies are basically a commercial product marketed to earn a profit, which means pleasing as large an audience as possible. So, if there's a conflict between historical accuracy and constructing a more saleable story, we know generally which factor will prevail. That's simply the way our capitalistic system works. Thus, well-intended folks should not be surprised at the liberties taken in this supposed account of events surrounding the siege of the Alamo.

That being said, I thought the movie was very enjoyable. I thought so back in 1955, and again the other night on TMC. It's a good lively cast. Hayden may not have liked his role, but he's motivated nonetheless—catch how much he puts into the emotional exhaustion when he raps in vain on a door and then faces the camera in near collapse. That's probably the most animated this fan of Hayden's has seen him in any movie. The under-rated Richard Carlson also delivers as Hayden's rival, and of course there's the inspired casting of Hunnicutt as Davy Crockett at a time when Disney's Crockett dominated the big screen and the pop music charts too. In fact, Hunnicutt's little speech after arriving at the fort amounts to a masterpiece of down-home eloquence. And Russell Simpson's parson of-very-few- words is just the kind of no-nonsense character you'd expect to find among a band of back- woodsmen. Too bad, however, that commercial factors required Alberghetti's role. She's fine as the teenage aristocrat, but the sub-plot pairing her with the very mature Hayden amounts to the movie's biggest drawback.

One thing lowly Republic was good at is action sequences. Here the battle scenes and spectacle are outstanding—the collapsing parapet is both surprising and especially well done. For sure, the studio knew how to get the most out of limited resources, even as constraints show up around the edges, particularly with painted backdrops. Nonetheless, the enemy is treated with due respect, and I particularly liked the elegiac final scene with the traumatized women and children. It's just the kind of somber mood fitting for what has happened. Of course, Republic's reputation as a cowboy studio would never get its product much attention from either the press or the artistic community. Nonetheless, this is a surprisingly well-mounted and entertaining feature that can hold its own against bigger- budget action features of its day. Too bad, its many merits have been so generally overlooked.

Made in spite by Yates, well shot and mounted, replete with an excellent cast, 'The Last Command' still remains good value even if it rather pales besides Wayne's grandiose epic of just a few years later. The much underrated Hayden is superb as "big Jim Bowie" and Hunnicutt equally as good as Davy Crockett. Hayden has the ability to appear gentle, naive, rugged and brusque all at once - something few other actors, with perhaps the exception of Spencer Tracy, managed. Unfortunately Crockett and his 29 men don't appear until some way in. With only Hayden's latent dynamism really keeping things afloat, the first half an hour of the film is rather talkative in exposition, and it drags somewhat. Consuela de Quesada (Anna Marie Alberghetti) is a limp romantic foil to Bowie - I for one would be happy to have seen her written out and the structure tightened through her absence. Ernest Borgnine plays his small role with gusto - his confrontation with Bowie a standout scene in a film full of fighting, although his later genial acceptance of Bowie's superiority as a man is perhaps emphasised by the script too much for comfort.

Steiner's music (and especially the superb title song) goes a long way in making events move smoothly towards the climax. For it's the Alamo Battle the bums on seats will have come to see, and here it is done well (although again not *as* well as Wayne would manage with considerable more time and resources later (although any comparison isn't too much to the present film's detriment).

In short this is well worth seeing, and it provides a contemporarily staged contrast to the better-known epic which was to follow. I'd still like to see an historically accurate account of the events at the mission, though...

This is a version of the Alamo story often overlooked mainly because it focuses on Jim Bowie as opposed to Davy Crockett as the central character. Sterling Hayden in one of the many roles he truly hated before escaping to the seas is a stalwart and heroic Bowie.

As I said though in another review of a film with Bowie as the central character, Jim Bowie was anything but heroic. He was a land swindler, slave dealer, no good con man who very few people had anything nice to say about. He was a tough guy though, no question about that and the famous Bowie knife was made to his specifications.

Bowie was married into the Mexican aristocracy and did suffer the horrible tragedy of having his wife and children taken in an epidemic of the plague. We never see them here or in the John Wayne film or in the new Disney epic.

Possibly the best acting honors do go to Arthur Hunnicutt who was more the backwoods character that Davy Crockett was then John Wayne. Billy Bob Thornton in the 2004 Alamo was probably the best Davy Crockett ever put on film and the most accurate.

Probably too much is now known for the general public to appreciate a film like The Last Command. The principals at the Alamo were three dimensional characters and not the cardboard cutouts they are here.