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Post by Allen Wiener on May 22, 2013 22:41:07 GMT -5
Sounds like it would have been a terrific Alamo movie and, had Disney put some promotion behind it, a succesful one. I hope we get to see it in that form some day.
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 23, 2013 8:54:10 GMT -5
BTW, Rich, do you know how long the full JLH edit ran before Disney hacked it up? I wonder if it would have played better as a two-part TV mini series if it was long enough. I'd like to see the other characters fleshed out, especially the Dickinsons and Bonham. It would have made more sense to me to cut the whole San Jacinto segment and put more footage back into the Alamo part of the film. They could have put closing text on the screen simply saying that Santa Anna continued his sweep through Texas, the Goliad massacre followed, before Houston finished him off at San Jacinto, achieving Texas independence, while shouting "Remember the Alamo!" The defenders' sacrifice was not in vain and their goal of freeing Texas from Mexico was achieved.
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Post by Rich Curilla on May 23, 2013 23:55:58 GMT -5
Allen, its hard to say what was when regarding the cuts. I know that the word was the first test audience screening was in the neighborhood of three hours. Then, if I remember correctly, John himself made some drastic cuts for the next screening several weeks later -- and then put some of the material back in.
I definitely defend test audience screenings. I have edited my own motion picture myself, and you can't see the forest for the trees after weeks and weeks in front of a Moviola (or a computer screen). You are working intensely to perfect every scene and, after a while, you feel they all are indeed perfect. For the director, the test audience screening is about watching the audience from the back of the house, hoping they laugh when you planned and don't cry when you didn't want them to. I promise you, the problems in my own film revealed themselves in no uncertain terms when the audience got fidgety. I wanted to go under my seat. Haven't felt that way since the wicked queen on the cliff in the rain and lightning in Snow White when I was five!
John told me that his perfect version from the material he knows he has would probably only be about fifteen or twenty minutes longer than the current version. Once filmed, every movie has its perfect length.
Miniseries? Not that project. To me that is like trying to turn a Rolls into a V.W. It is a different art form developed by a different business. Would the story of the Alamo -- and the whole revolution -- lend themselves to a mini? You bet.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jul 30, 2013 15:07:19 GMT -5
If you haven't heard, the Alamo is having an evening screening of John Lee Hancock's The Alamo on the premises on August 17 (Davy Crockett's birthday). It is free, but limited to the first 400 people in line. They urge bringing a lawn chair. They will have a concession stand and will not allow outside stuff to be brought in. Actually, for me, seeing JLH's The Alamo AT the Alamo is like the two times we showed John Wayne's in the Waynamo compound. Nothing more perfect. I have just reread Walter Lord's A Time to Stand and I am amazed at how much JLH's The Alamo honors the accuracy of that book. And, while the movie reflects updates to our historical understanding, and perhaps stimulates controversaries, the battle scenes have clearly done for Alamo movies what Walter Lord did for Alamo books. The quantum leap of JLH's film from John Wayne's movie and the abysmal The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory is parallel with the step up from Lon Tinkle's 13 Days to Glory to Walter Lord's succinct chronicle.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Aug 3, 2013 12:46:25 GMT -5
Interesting discussion here, Rich. I revisit Walter Lord's book every couple of years or so and it continues to hold up well.
None of the major films (Wayne's and the 2004 version) are perfect, but I found much more to like in the 2004 film from a historical perspective than Wayne's (but Wayne's "Alamo" is wicked good entertainment -- story-telling at its best in the style of those 1950s and '60s epic motion pictures). The only thing that really bothers me about the 2004 "Alamo" is the location of the church in respect to the Long Barracks. It's not like it's in every scene (it isn't), but that part of the set was so far from accurate that it bugs me. It's a shame, because other than the smaller scale (if there was a scale to the original Alamo at all), the rest of the compound looks pretty darn much correct.
I love the bigger-than-life portrayals of the trinity in Wayne's movie, but enjoy the portrayals in the 2004 movie for their believability. Like I said, IMO there is more to like than not in the 2004 film. I agree with Allen -- it would have been nice to cut down or out the San Jacinto footage in favor of other things. Maybe a couple of the other characters could have been better developed (Dickenson and so on). But overall, the film did meet my expectations.
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Post by loucapitano on Aug 3, 2013 13:20:50 GMT -5
Lon Tinkle's Alamo was the second scholarly treatise I read on the Alamo after reading the 1949 John Myers Myers book. I was 13 and had recently sat through the 3rd showing of Wayne's Alamo. (Movies ran continuously in those days). I didn't read Walter Lord until College and liked it, except for my disappointment in his big reduction in actual Mexican casualties.
I want to mention a novelization I read in 1960 by a western screen writer named Steve Frazee. I suppose it was written to coincide with the Waynamo, since it contained many photos from the movie. It even purported to be the source of the script John Wayne used. Needless to say, it wasn't. But if it had been, John Wayne could have produced one of the classic movies of all time. I lost my ragged copy around 1969, but recently found reprints of it through some London publisher, which I bought for $11. Has anyone else read this book? It would make great discussion as it gives life to dozens of actual defenders and includes a number of soldier and Bexarians.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Aug 3, 2013 13:33:34 GMT -5
I don't think I've ever heard of it, Lou. Interesting, though. I agree, something like this could make for interesting discussion on this board.
Paul
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Post by mjbrathwaite on Aug 3, 2013 17:19:56 GMT -5
I have Steve Frazee's book. I haven't read it since I was a teenager, although about ten years ago when I was playing in the orchestra for a show, I reread the first three chapters during the dialogue sections of the show. At that stage of my life, I'd spent about 40 years trying to find eyewitness accounts of the battle, but had found only the so-called report by Santa Anna from "Men's Illustrated" (although I'd seen it in a more resspectable publication), so I had no way of assessing its accuracy. In the light of your comments, I'm about to start reading it again.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 3, 2013 17:23:06 GMT -5
I have an old copy of the Frazee book, which would have made a much better film than the script Wayne ended up using.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 4, 2013 14:10:35 GMT -5
I still have my copy of the Frazee book and I think it's one of the best novelizations of the story. I haven't read it in ages, but I remember it breezing right along, remaining lively, developing interesting characters, and building up nicely to the battle. It certainly would have made a far better film than that script James Grant wrote for Wayne. Myers Myers is also one of my still-favorite Alamo novels and may have been the first non-childrens book I read about the Alamo. I regard Tinkle's book also as a novel and not in the same league with Walter Lord's book.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Sept 2, 2013 18:22:41 GMT -5
Frazee had a style that no other top Alamo book had. It was earthy. You were in the trenches with the men witnessing them have normal, mundane thoughts and interactions. This meant a lot to me as a teen. I enjoyed the every-day-ness of the sentry in the bell tower of San Fernando when "He leaned out and spat and watched the spittle fall, swinging out in its drop before it struck the plaza. A man could crack his head falling from this height." Had to do it myself twice (spit, not crack my head) -- once from the church tower at Alamo Village and once from Michael Corenblith's awesomely accurate San Fernando Church tower at Dripping Springs. These were real human touches and not super-pretentious (and goofy) as the feather-blowing scene in John Wayne's Cantina. Since I read the book before I got to see the movie, I too hoped the movie script would follow it.
One of the many other touches that I liked in Frazee's Alamo was that the framework for the whole story was the relationship between Veedor Bustamente (the ancient Bexareno) and his grandson Bernal. Very Hemingway. If you look sharp, you will see that John Lee Hancock pays homage in The Alamo (2004) to old Veedor in one reaction cutaway shot during the Texians' rush to the Alamo. I think JLH must have loved that book too.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Sept 2, 2013 19:37:08 GMT -5
Rich - again, it's been a long time since I read it, but that is how I remember it; something about the characters and scenes that made it very real and connected with readers on a personal level.
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Post by loucapitano on Sept 5, 2013 19:21:28 GMT -5
Rich and Allen, I can only agree with both of your remembrance of the Frazee book. It had real humanity. I also caught the Bustamente scene in 2004. I wondered if Handcock included that on purpose. I also wonder if he a some added footage to the scene that landed on the cutting room floor.
Speaking of Alamo novelizations, I dug up a little gem titled: "The Blazing Dawn" by James Wakefield Burke, A Pyramid paperback from 1975. I'm not sure it's entirely original, espcially the Bowie parts, but it kept my interest when I first read it. I re-read it recently and concluded it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was rather entertaining. Plus, the epilogue ends in the Menger Hotel, my favorite place. Lou from Long Island
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Post by Jim Boylston on Sept 5, 2013 19:59:09 GMT -5
Speaking of Alamo novelizations, I dug up a little gem titled: "The Blazing Dawn" by James Wakefield Burke, A Pyramid paperback from 1975. I'm not sure it's entirely original, espcially the Bowie parts, but it kept my interest when I first read it. I re-read it recently and concluded it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was rather entertaining. Plus, the epilogue ends in the Menger Hotel, my favorite place. Lou from Long Island Burke wrote a bad Crockett novel some years ago, and another Alamo novel called, "Devil on the Wall," wherein a couple of defenders fire up a joint during the siege. Here's an excerpt: Whatever gets you through the night. "Blazing Dawn" indeed!
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Post by Rich Curilla on Sept 5, 2013 20:01:38 GMT -5
Rich and Allen, I can only agree with both of your remembrance of the Frazee book. It had real humanity. I also caught the Bustamente scene in 2004. I wondered if Handcock included that on purpose. I also wonder if he a some added footage to the scene that landed on the cutting room floor. Speaking of Alamo novelizations, I dug up a little gem titled: "The Blazing Dawn" by James Wakefield Burke, A Pyramid paperback from 1975. I'm not sure it's entirely original, espcially the Bowie parts, but it kept my interest when I first read it. I re-read it recently and concluded it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was rather entertaining. Plus, the epilogue ends in the Menger Hotel, my favorite place. Lou from Long Island Blazing Dawn had everybody in the book... "blazing." lol. It's a good thing Burke's next book was about the Franciscan Missions of Texas. He needed some "confessing" after his racy Alamo heroes. LOL.
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