Herbert Yates of Republic foolishly wouldn't give John Wayne what he wanted to make his Alamo picture, ending their relationship and thus losing Republic's one big star. Yates pushed ahead with his own Alamo movie - one that focuses on Jim Bowie.
Bowie is played by Sterling Hayden, a tall actor with a deep voice who I've never been that much of a fan of despite his iconic status and colourful personal life. He's quite well cast as Bowie though.
The film itself is choppy and not particularly well handled (it was Frank Lloyd's last movie). It covers a few years, starting when Bowie is trying to keep out of the conflict, not being a big fan of Texians; he loses his family to plague off screen and eventually becomes radicalised I guess you could say. He takes part in a fight or two then winds up at the Alamo.
Too much screen time is spent on a Mexican woman who pants after Bowie, played by Anna Marie Alberghetti. I enjoyed Arthur Hunnicutt's Davy Crockett and wish he'd been given more screen time. Ditto for Ernest Borgnine's settler. Richard Carlson's Travis was so-so.
Things pick up once everyone gets to the Alamo - really I wish the whole film had been set there. Maybe the filmmakers were worried about the female audience, devoting so much time to Alberghetti's character - but they could've just had her meet Bowie there. It was dramatically unsatisfactory.
The movie gets better as it goes along and there's some decent production value for Republic. It's not unsympathetic to Santa Anna.
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