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Post by bobster021 on Nov 16, 2011 17:26:01 GMT -5
Hope this hasn't been discussed before but I'm new to the board. Apparently written by someone who was absent from school the day they discussed the Alamo. Glenn Ford is the last man to leave the Alamo, and fictitiously named John Stroud. In the Alamo, Stroud has a 6-shooter strapped to his waist. Upon arriving at the next town, everyone carries 6-shooters and dresses like cowboys from the 1870s. Except for John Russell, who wears an army uniform circa 1840s. Also interesting that in John Wayne's The Comancheros, a young widow says her husband died at the Alamo. But all the outfits and guns suggest the story takes place in the 1870s, nearly 40 years after the young widow's husband was killed at the Alamo. Wayne made this movie one year after his Alamo, so he should have seen that problem.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 16, 2011 18:37:10 GMT -5
Well, "Man From the Alamo" is little more than a curiousity among Alamo movies. I haven't seen it in a while, but I recall a couple of good scenes actually in the Alamo, but it's all downhill from there.
The widow in "Comancheros," played by Joan O'Brien (who was Susannah Dickinson in Wayne's "The Alamo") actually says her husband was killed at San Jacinto and the Wayne's character (Jake Cutter) was at that battle too. Actually, considering the numerous factual errors in Wayne's "The Alamo," it's not surprising that he didn't catch this glitch either.
In both cases, you're right about the gigantic disconnect between the alleged time periods and the 1870s style weapons and dress.
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Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 16, 2011 19:13:56 GMT -5
I've never seen this movie, but it doesn't sound like I'm missing much.
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Post by Herb on Nov 16, 2011 20:24:10 GMT -5
The movie The Comancheros was supposedly during the Republic years. So it was the weapons that were the anachronisms. However, geography was another one, there was no real penetration from Texas, of the Llano Estacado, until the 1870s (minus the Santa Fe Expedition) especially Palo Duro Canyon.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 17, 2011 12:07:55 GMT -5
The Comancheros is actually a real favorite of mine. I think Wayne, Persoff, Whitman and the rest of the cast are in terrific form. It's basically a rip-roaring, fun John Wayne western and you just leave history behind.
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Post by Chuck T on Nov 17, 2011 13:21:11 GMT -5
I don't think it was John Russell in buckskin in "The Man From The Alamo". It was Hugh O'Brien. John Russell was in "The Last Command" though.
The Commancheros was the second of three novels that I know about written by Paul Wellman, the others being "The Iron Mistress" and Magnificent Destiny". All three are great books. The movies made from them were less so, although for period authenticity the Iron Mistress has it all over the Comancheros. In this latter film they mention Fort Sill, and I believe that post was estanlished following the ACW. Can't beat it for action though, and did anyone notice Bob Steel?
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Post by bobster021 on Nov 18, 2011 17:35:06 GMT -5
Yes, it was Hugh O'Brian. My mistake.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Nov 18, 2011 19:36:15 GMT -5
It's basically a rip-roaring, fun John Wayne western and you just leave history behind. And that sorta says it all. Folks didn't demand history or accuracy from their entertainment in the fifties and sixties -- and Hollywood wouldn't have given it to them if they did. Even now, movies at best are there to "inspire," not to "inform." Alamo: The Price of Freedom is different because it is a docudrama, not Hollywood dream-factory entertainment. The Alamo (2004) is different because they cared to install as much history as a dramatic structure and character arcs would allow. John Wayne's The Alamo was just made for "rip-roaring fun" and never really meant to be historical. Ditto all other Westerns. Taken as a group however, they provide an accurate picture of Americans' view of Americana -- their role in history. (Sorry, just a rant. ;D) NOTE: John Wayne's The Alamo is the reason many have pursued the historic Alamo as a life-time passion. It did it's job well.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 18, 2011 22:17:07 GMT -5
I've never expected Hollywood to put history first. They are in the business of entertaining and history is full of stories and characters around which good films can be built - or at least entertaining stories. I was talking to a friend about this and we both thought that the TV mini-series is a much better way to convey historical events; something between a book and a Hollywood movie. Although they still take liberties with the facts, I think a series like HBO's "Rome" really captured what people were like in Rome at that time, what the place looked like, and how people behaved there. For the most part, it was an overcrowded, lawless dump; quite the opposite of the Rome that is so familiar in Hollywood epics.
I really think the 2004 "The Alamo" would have been a great mini series if it had been in HBO's hands from the start and was designed as a project like that. Much more time could have been spent developing the characters, their backgrounds and their motivations to show what kind of people were in Texas and the rest of Mexico at the time. The causes of the war could have been more clearly established and the events leading up to the Alamo allowed to unfold in more detail, so that the entire siege and battle do not occur in a vacuum, which is a problem with most Alamo movies.
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Post by gtj222 on Nov 18, 2011 22:40:22 GMT -5
An HBO series would have been very interesting.
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Post by Chuck T on Nov 19, 2011 5:41:01 GMT -5
Allen: I think you are correct here. The typical HBO extended format would have afforded the opportunity to place things in better context. This is the very reason why my favorite of all of them is the highly fictional but still contextual Last Command.
The problem with any Alamo movie is that there are only so many ways that you can depict a seige. To be entertaining there must be something with which to entertain. A seige tends to be drawn out and as a result becomes less intersting to the majority of the audience This does not apply to people like us of course, but our relatively small numbers don't making movie making profitable. Heroic stories are not enough. There must be something to grip and hold and audience, lest the movie initiate all too many trips to the snack table.
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Post by bobster021 on Nov 19, 2011 9:21:38 GMT -5
I know movies are for entertainment, but when they choose to tell a historical story, I think there is an obligation for reasonable accuracy. If they don't want to do that, there is no shortage of fiction from which to make a movie. There has to be some dramatic license in telling a historical story, but I don't go along with changing the essential facts. The Alamo movies have not been too bad in that regard if we don't count Man from the Alamo.
I thought it was interesting that John Wayne had a scene in which the Alamo defenders journeyed outside the walls to destroy a Mexican cannon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that really happened. Not a big deal in Wayne's movie, more for the entertainment value. But what is odd, is that in the TV movie 13 Days to Glory, they included a very similar scene. I don't know if the writers just copied it for entertainment or actually thought it really happened because of Wayne's version.
In They Died with Their Boots on, Custer--back at the fort with the 7th Cavalry--learns that the Indians have set a trap to ambush General Terry's force. He then leads his troops on a suicide mission to save Terry's command. Nevermind that the LBH battle did not unfold in that way at all.
There are 2 movies about the Johnson County War. One by that title and Heaven's Gate is the other. Heaven's Gate assigned the names of real people in that saga to other real people. Jim Averill, a rancher hanged at the onset of the troubles, became the name of the sheriff, whose real name was Red Angus. The real seige of the gunmen by the ranchers became a fictitious pitched battle with numerous casualties on both sides including the death of William Irvine who did not die there but rather lived until 1924. "Johnson County War" takes the historical last stand of Nate Champion and pretends it happened to a fictional character named Cain Hammett. Inglourious Basterds blew Hitler up in a theatre.
I know people have the responsibility to read and learn the facts on their own instead of accepting movie versions as accurate. But I also believe movie makers should feel a responsibility not to present a historical event in a completely inaccurate way.
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Post by gtj222 on Nov 19, 2011 10:05:38 GMT -5
No, the cannon blow up scene did not happen, but they did go out and burn down several huts, as illustrated in 2004 Alamo. I think, in our lifetime, the most historically correct Alamo movie we will see is 2004's Alamo. Like it or not, it beats the others as far as being closer to the truth.
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Post by Chuck T on Nov 19, 2011 10:24:03 GMT -5
A version of the cannon episode was also in Last Command. The film version of Custer, Son of the Morning Star had about the most accurate movie depiction of the battle on film, and with all of the different theories of the Custer portion of the battle it was compressed just right, not giving a lot of detail but just enough.
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Post by bobster021 on Nov 19, 2011 10:42:00 GMT -5
I agree about Son of the Morningstar. In another Custer film, "Custer of the West," the Little Big Horn battle is fought in a desert. It was filmed in Spain, and they didn't know or care how different it looked frrom the actual Little Big Horn area.
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