American Cinematographer - July 1990 - 37

ballad, an ode to an heroic era, aimed at a generation
that didn't seem to believe in heroes anymore.
In the process, he acted pretty heroically
himself. Few filmmakers have ever fought so long
and hard and against such overwhelming odds to

Wayne's Alamo was the biggest and, some
say, best treatment of the battle on film but it was by
no means the first. The cinematic
possibilities of the
Alamo were obvious from the earliest days of the
cinema. Gaston Melies, brother of pioneer filmmaker

put a personal vision on the screen. Over the course

Georges, filmed the first version, The Immortal Alamo,

of some 15 years, The
obsession. To see it

in San Antonio in 1911.

Alamo became John Wayne's
through, he would put his
health, his fortune and his reputation on the line.
The Alamo's hold on John Wayne's imagi¬
nation is not hard to understand; the story has cast
its spell on generations of Americans. As a culture
possibly, as a species - we honor the glorious
defeat. We hail our conquering heroes but deify our
martyrs: the Greeks at Thermopolae, Custer at the
Little Big Horn, the defenders of the Alamo.

-

The Alamo fell to the Mexican dictator
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna on March 6,

1836, after

a

13 day siege. The conquering general

called the battle "a small affair" but its historic
ramifications were significant: the defeat led di¬

starred

as

John Ford's brother Francis

Davy Crockett.

Other silent versions include The Martyrs of
the Alamo (1915), directed by Christy Cabanne and

supervised by D.W. Griffith, and Robert North
Bradbury's Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo
(1926) supervised by Anthony J. Xydias.
Xydias also produced a cheapie program¬
mer in 1937, Heroes of the Alamo, which
liberally used
footage from Davy Crockett for much-needed pro¬
duction value.

Republic Studios, where Wayne had been a
player since 1935, produced Man of Con¬
quest, the story of Sam Houston, in 1939. The film
features a brief but very effective Alamo sequence
contract

but

its climax for the victorious battle of San

rectly to Sam Houston's victory over Santa Anna at
San Jacinto, Texas' independence from Mexico and,
ultimately, statehood.

Jacinto where Houston's troops defeated Santa
Anna, inspired by the battle cry, "Remember the

But because there were no survivors and
because among the dead were such men as James
Bowie and David Crockett, legends already, the

Alamo!"
It has been suggested that Wayne's interest
in the Alamo dates from his desire to portray Sam

Alamo quickly took on a mythic, symbolic aura that
has nearly supplanted the actual event. When Wayne
stressed the folkloric aspect of the story he aligned
himself with nearly every author, poet, playwright
and filmmaker who ever tackled the subject.

Houston in Man

became

July 1990

American

saves

Of Conquest,

went to Richard Dix. True or

a role that instead
not, filming The Alamo

Wayne's dream. By 1946, he was a big
enough star to do something about it and began
seriously planning the giant production.

Cinematographer

35
American Cinematographer - July 1990

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