Texas

The Texas revolution must be taken in the context of being just one of several local revolutions against Santa Ana's overthrow of the 1826 Mexican constitution. For this reason, many Texas hispanics fought on the Texan side. Similarly, Edina de Zavala was one of the two main movers for the preservation of the Alamo and in the Daughters of the Texas Revolution.

While military disasters, the Alamo and Goliad did convince Santa Ana that the Texans were no real military threat. This caused him to send part of his force back to Mexico. For one thing, it was difficult to supply such a large army in early spring in Texas so far away from its supply base. BTW, this was one of Houston's calculations.

Santa Ana also divided his remaining forces in an effort to resolve the revolt as quickly as possible and to make foraging easier. He also attempted to terrorize the Texans and anybody else in Mexico contemplating further revolt by executing all prisoners at Goliad and the Alamo. This miscalculation insured that no Texas soldier would ever surrender again.

Using a force of 8-900 men, Santa Ana then chased the Texican army across Texas. He eventually "trapped" them against water at San Jacinto, while waiting for the rest of his army to show up for the final blow. While Santa Ana was a pretty good soldier, given their past history, it apparently never occurred to him that the Texicans would actually take the initiative. The rest is history.

Let's start with the similarities of the book and the movie, James Michener's name appears on both and it is set in the early days of Texas. From there, only the character's name resemble anything from the book. Granted there are a few good actors(Stacy Keach,David Keith), They are far outnumbered by ones that should seek work in B-grade horror flicks. The camera work was so bad I could swear some of the battle scenes looked like old footage from a 50's movie. The Writers took a magnificent story about the history of Texas and made into something I could see on Rawhide or The Rifleman. All in all, This was a big disappointment

For historical fiction with accurate underpinnings this strikes me as a pretty good effort. Not perfect but considering the loaded nature of the subject it is the most even-handed treatment I have ever seen.

So far as being an entertaining film, it is a bit slow to get going. For historical accuracy and attention to detail it rates higher than others. For one, Jim Bowie actually has a genuine Bowie knife. The Alamo has the correct front. Rarely has anyone else portrayed these two simple details properly.

Performances are tour-de-force and in general this is a well made and acted film.

I should live to see the day when Hollywood can make a film about Texas and/or The Alamo and not ignore what many historians point to as the central issue, that being slavery. In 1836 one out of eight persons in Texas were slaves. We don't see even one in this movie. The subject is not mentioned or alluded to once.

Overall this film has many more strengths than weaknesses and clearly took great steps towards accuracy and fairness.

It's interesting that none of those who panned this movie were Texans. Whether or not it followed Michener's book closely is not the point; it followed history very well.

The whole reason Americans came to settle in Texas in the first place - as the movie made abundantly clear through Patrick Duffy's Stephen F. Austin - was that Mexico had not and could not properly settle such a vast land. Austin's colony was established at the invitation of Santa Anna.

It was only as Santa Anna systematically denied the Texicans - or Texians, if you prefer - basic rights that any citizen of any nation should reasonably expect from his government that they revolted. As the movie made clear, Austin did everything he could - with Sam Houston's concurrence - to keep his agreement with Santa Anna. The Mexican dictator literally drove him and the Texicans to revolt in order to give him an excuse to invade and slaughter them. His cruelty was best shown by what happened at Goliad - where the Texicans surrendered, only to be lined up and murdered after giving up all their weapons.

This last could have been emphasized a little more to show the bleak reality of trying to deal with this despot, but that's my only quarrel with the entire movie. I gave it an 8 - and wondered how IMDB managed to come up with a weighted average of 4.1 when 55% of the voters gave it a 7 or better.

Back in the old days this film Texas would have been given a glitzy premiere at one of those old movie palaces and would have been directed by someone like John Ford or Howard Hawks. We are indeed fortunate to have this film, one of the most accurate on the subject of the founding of the Republic of Texas.

True life Texas heroes like Sam Houston and Stephen Austin played here by Stacy Keach and Patrick Duffy don't seem to happen in this day and age. As it turns out I just finished reading a book about Sam Houston a character who was involved in every major event one way or another from the early Indian wars fighting under Andrew Jackson right up to the Civil War when Texas repudiated her founder and seceded. He's one person I never get tired of reading and talking about. Stacy Keach does him justice, I'm sure Houston descendants would approve.

Stephen Austin led the first group of colonists who were from New England as opposed to the mostly southern based immigrants that later settled. All done with the permission of the Mexican government until they became alarmed at the number of Anglos coming in. Duffy captures Austin the dreamer quite well.

A nice supporting cast is given to Keach and Duffy and school kids studying the history of the time would do well to watch this film for a most accurate portrayal.