Very well executed

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

the audience applauded

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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.

Previous posters have covered the back history of this film...some inaccurately, by the way. First of all, the Bracketville set for this film is NOT the same one used by John Wayne five years later. And WHAT a difference a few hundred miles make! Bracketville is about two hours southwest of SA, and looks NOTHING like the actual location. San Antonio is not in the desert - it's green. The SA River is basically a ditch in its natural state, not a "majestic" waterway. SA is at the base of the Hill Country - small rolling hills, covered "lushly" with green live oak trees. Disney's more recent "The Alamo," while pretty bad, at least filmed in the proper terrain (albeit closer to Austin, than San Antonio).Interesting that the Alamo first appears an hour and fifteen minutes into this film. It plays a secondary role, in some aspects.(I wonder if the 1800s natives called the city "San Antone" as often as they do in this movie. It's not a phrase used today - it's likely to instigate derision if uttered by a tourista in 2009. It's akin to referring to "San Francisco" with the horrid "Frisco"...it doesn't play well with the citizens.) Not being an historian, I can't comment on the accuracy of the film - others have covered that aspect. I will say that Hunnicutt's version of Crockett is cartoonish, at best. Most of the "famous" moments play in an overly-dramatic way. I suppose that is inevitable.As an aside, the reasons that Ron Howard pulled out of directing the recent version of "The Alamo," are quite a story, on their own.Most historians agree that the novel, 'The Gates of the Alamo," is a great and accurate depiction.

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.

Good casting was the hallmark of this version of the Alamo. Sterling Hayden did an excellent job of playing Jim Bowie. History has changed the projection of these indomidable heroes, but the movies wouldn't be quite as popular if they portrayed Jim Bowie as an adventurer running from the law, Travis as a divorced lawyer. But Davie Crocket always manages to emerge as a real life hero. This and most other versions of the Alamo overlooks the fact that the Mexican army had just finished putting down rebellions all over Texas and the Mexican government was very generous in awarding newcomers homesteads free for the taking. But then came the Taxation, hence the rebellions of Texicans and Mexicans. The story was entertaining and left us feeling like the Alamo defenders were truly heroes.