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Post by Rich Curilla on Apr 3, 2011 13:40:17 GMT -5
Thanks. I enjoyed being taken back (or is it "taken aback") by this clip. Um... is this what everyone is referring to with Walter saying 8,000 Mexicans? If so, he is saying "a thousand" -- but that can't be what you mean, because that's his casualty figure (believed at that time). Just checking.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 3, 2011 16:19:18 GMT -5
OK - "Music of the Alamo: From 19th Century Ballads to Big-Screen Soundtracks," by yours truly and a young man named Chemerka.
OK - I know you were only kidding, Rich, but couldn't resist. I guess I'm like that News Carver guy in "Butch & Sundance"; love seeing my name in print.
Allen
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Post by Rich Curilla on Apr 3, 2011 19:10:22 GMT -5
I KNEW you'd jump at the chance! Speaking of the young Chemerka, I was just watching a movie several nights ago with a current Christopher Lloyd in it, and WOW does he look like current Bill Chemerka -- mostly the eyes and... well.... the crazy look. ;D
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Post by loucapitano on Apr 4, 2011 17:02:47 GMT -5
Thanks Allen, someone mentioned it to me about a year ago, but I forgot. Gotta have it now. "Hey Honey! I'm buying a new Alamo record this week. Now don't get sore, we'll pay the rent next week!" "YOU #$%@&*#$%&*@!!!" "Now Honey, that's no way to talk to a memember of the Alamo Forum!"
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 5, 2011 7:26:32 GMT -5
Thanks, Lou; hope you enjoy it!
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Post by Hollowhorn on Nov 26, 2011 15:51:20 GMT -5
The Last Command will be shown on UK TV on Monday 27th November on the 'Film 4' channel at 11am. (Also on 'Film 4' HD.)
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Post by loucapitano on Nov 30, 2011 16:31:52 GMT -5
To my knowledge, "The Last Command" is only available on VHS. I got my copy on Amazon several years ago and cherish it with my other Alamo films. d**n good action and d**n good music for a small budget picture. I'd like to ad to the "What If" speculation game: "What if Republic Pictures Yates and Wayne could have got together and produced a big budget Alamo story"? Ah yes, we can only dream!
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Post by Hollowhorn on Nov 30, 2011 18:07:02 GMT -5
So, I eventually got to see it (in 'high definition' too) it was bloody awful. Not as bad as 'The First Texan' or 'Lone Star' perhaps, but still pretty awful.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Dec 1, 2011 9:02:26 GMT -5
I wouldn't call "The Last Command" awful, but (like most Alamo movies) it leaves a lot to be desired. As mentioned earlier, the similarities in the script with Wayne's Alamo are pretty glaring, but in some ways it's a better film than Wayne's (certainly shorter!). I think the battle scene is excellent, Max Steiner's music score is first rate, and Hayden does a good job as Bowie. I've always enjoyed Arthur Hunnicutt's portrayal of Crockett, although it's pretty much the fictional backwoods image that Crockett helped to create himself. The ficitonal elements, particularly the dreary romantic subplot, can make your eyes roll and the love scenes really bog the thing down. I have the soundtrack LP, which is very good, and both the VHS release and an off-air DVD-R dub from the TCM recent screening. Good, bad and worse - I keep all the Alamo movies and documentaries in my collection. Not good history, but a good representation of how history is used.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 1, 2011 9:10:48 GMT -5
Allen: Was there a battle scene? I must have been dreaming about Anna Maria Alberghetti and missed it those thirty or so times I have watched it.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Dec 1, 2011 9:21:44 GMT -5
Oh yeah; there's a battle scene. In fact, John Wayne once said that they got a lot better action than he did in his higher-budget film! And there's evidence there of Republic having the original Wayne script, as in Hunnicutt's Crockett blowing himself up with the powder supply. Earlier we have Bowie falling from a horse, ala Richard Widmark, as a way to get him into his "sick" room for the finale. But, yeah - that Alberghetti subplot can really hang you out to dry.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 1, 2011 11:15:28 GMT -5
Allen: Know and agree with what you are saying about how the plot, therefore the script is very similar between the two. I think the casting was better in The Last Command. Somehow Widmark who I otherwise like especially for his work on the Ford film "Two Rode Together" with Stewart, was horrible as Bowie, Not as bad as Alan Ladd in the Iron Mistress but bad. Hunnicutt as Crockett is a keeper. Harvey as Travis, come on. Of course there were a lot of folks from the John Ford stock company in the later film, some good, some bad. Alltogether though I think the cast in the Last Command was far superior, including Borgnine, Ben Cooper John Russell and that fellow who played on Dallas, can't remember his name. I think most of them were just starting in the business. Borgnine had just played in or was about to play in Marty. Excellent film and a well deserved Academy Award.
I would have loved to have seen Hayden as Bowie in the Iron Mistress, with Linda Darnell as Judalon and Alberghetti as Ursula. That would have been a great movie in my view.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Dec 1, 2011 13:56:52 GMT -5
Casting can often make or break a film for sure. I actually kind of liked Widmark because I thought he provided some of the limited spark in that film just with his energy, but it wasn't a very accurate portrayal of Bowie. According to Widmark, he was originally hired to play Travis, but he turned it down and insisted on playing Bowie. Wayne didn't like that because he thought Widmark too small for that role (not sure who he had in mind), but Widmark got his way. I thought Harvey was a fine actor, but he was either badly cast or badly directed by Wayne in "The Alamo." In the earliest scenes, for example, he tries for a southern accent, but it gets dropped pretty quickly and he sounds British the rest of the time. Now, Harvey did a fine southern accent in "Walk on the Wild Side," made only a couple of years later, so I have to blame that (and a lot more) on Wayne's awful direction.
Hayden is much closer to how I imagine the real Bowie probably was. I always liked Scott Forbes on the TV series, accurate or not; a likeable, engaging Bowie.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Dec 2, 2011 4:29:58 GMT -5
Scott Forbes certainly presented the rogue side of Bowie -- maybe better than anybody else. I could see Forbes' Bowie doing land swindles and slaving with Jean Lafitte. All the other Bowies would have been out of character doing that. It was an awful show though, when you look at it in relation to some of the other late fifties TV's.
Laurence Harvey's Lithuanian-born, South African English accent as a South Carolinian/Alabamian living in Texas? What's wrong with that? He also did a fine southern accent in Summer and Smoke. In truth, I have often wondered just how much "southern drawl" people from the south had in the 1830's. Seems like it would have been less severe in the earlier years than when Scarlet threw it around during the Civil War. And, of course, in the 1950's and 60's, accents were more a tool of the filmmaker to bias the audience. Think of all the sword and sandal movies that had Brooklyn accents for the Christians and British accents for the Romans. It was a technique -- and Duke ignored it.
Hayden has always been my favorite Bowie, but he has lost ground now due to Jason Patric's superbly underplayed, minimalist interpretation. I feel now that I've really seen a terminally ill man under extreme pressure and deep depression overcoming it to defend his beliefs. Doesn't perhaps give me a narrative life story of Bowie, but it sure makes me *see* him in that last month.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 2, 2011 10:34:44 GMT -5
Hayden was not the Bowie that was. Hayden was the Bowie we want him to be.
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