Le Déserteur du Fort Alamo

During the war of independence of Texas, a group of five men of the city of Oxbow chooses, for a raffle, who would leave the fort Alamo to save the families of all them of the Mexican troops. Stroud is the chosen, but is considered a coward by the other men of the fort, that don't know about the real reason of his escape.

However, when arriving to his home, his family and the one of all his companions had been killed by American renegades, that struggled beside of the Mexicans. Now, is the hour of the his revenge! But how to face the hostility of all the Texans that considered him a coward for fleeing of the Alamo?

Happily, his heroic behavior due to the adversities, as when leading a caravan of Texans before an attack of the renegades, will show to his compatriots him real value!

Good film, with good interpretations. An excellent western for a Saturday afternoon.

Budd Boetticher made several films for Universal Pictures before going to Columbia studios. His movies were westerns and adventures movies. Universal standard, where the bull fighter director could only show his professional skills but maybe nothing more. Anyway, I guess that served him for his later Columbia westerns starring Randolph Scott. This one surprised me because the presence of Glenn Ford, a Columbia star borrowed by Universal. I am sure it was the only one, knowing that later Ford will "emigrate" towards MGM. So this movie shows something rather unusual, related to Alamo battle, something surprising. A man falsely accused of cowardice instead of a murder, yes, very interesting. But the rest is predictable; good, effective but predictable. See for instance SPRINGFIELD RIFLE, more or less same plot and scheme.

There is always something interesting and just a bit different in this Director's Movies. This one is no exception. It is replete with thought provoking ideas like cowardice, bigotry, loyalty, and other values only found in the better Westerns.

This is an action filled Film with guns blazing, galloping Horses, Wagon Trains, bushwhackers, Mexican impersonators, fist-fights and all that is expected in this type of thing. But the difference here is the intelligence. The injection in a popular genre some things that rose above the material.

Budd Boetticher, Anthony Mann, and sometimes John Ford and Howard Hawks always gave more than the raw material. This is a modest effort from one of the Greats with an OK cast and a Production that looks so much bigger than it was. That was Boetticher, he was always so much bigger and better than what he was allowed.

As the war for Texas independence heightens, the Alamo has become a critical point of time buying interest. Fearing their families will perish under the might of the marauding Mexican army, the men of the Alamo draw lots to see which one of them will flee the Alamo battle to steer the respective families out of harms way. John Stroud is the man faced with the task, but upon reaching his destinations he finds he's too late to save anyone. However, this is just the start of his worries as he finds he has been branded a coward for leaving the Alamo, where all have now perished; while his attempts to avenge the murder of his family are beset with problems at every turn.

In truth, no great shakes in the Western genre here, and certainly not even close to being amongst the better work of director Budd Boetticher (The Tall T & Comanche Station) or Glenn Ford (The Big Heat & Blackboard Jungle). It's also not high on production value and doesn't have location vitality to give it an earthy sheen, it still, however, manages to be an entertaining piece putting an interesting offshoot to the Alamo legend. Glenn Ford is a watchable star at the best of times and he manages to keep this picture afloat by putting a bit of cool bravado urgency into the role of John Stroud, with dashes of emotional fortitude, his relationship with the young, recently orphaned Carlos, gives the film its emotional weight, and when that sits alongside the usual array of shoot them up sequences it makes for good honest Western fare.

Of the supporting cast, Chill Wills and Neville Brand put in some fine work, while there has been far far worse female leads in this genre than the radiant Julie Adams. Of Boetticher's direction? It's just about adequate, where working within the confines of the lot and it's lowly budget origins, he manages to pull it thru; but in truth probably himself cringed at some of the final night time sequences in the cut. He of course, a couple of years down the line, would go on to direct some of the best genre pieces on the market, so he owes the genre fan very little all told. So good and bad here folks, with the good far outweighing the technically bad deficiencies on offer. But I mean come on now, if you can't enjoy Ford having a good old punch up on the brink of a waterfall? Well you're probably better off not watching a 50s B movie Western in the first place then. 6.5/10

Glenn Ford plays the only survivor of the Alamo -- not a very popular man in Texas. Of course, the story gives him a good excuse -- he drew lots with some other Alamo soldiers to see who would go west to defend their homes from Texan bandits hired by the Mexicans, but the families were already dead when he gets there -- but nobody wants to believe him, except one lovely woman on the wagon train he sets out to defend. Only problem is his strategy of siding with the bandits to get into their confidence puts him in a nearly impossible situation.

A well-made film, with convincing action and gritty characters. Unlike other Boetticher westerns, here the scale of the film is "epic" as the future of the West hangs in the balance. Ford makes a surprisingly good substitute for Randolph Scott or John Wayne.