American Cinematographer - July 1990 - 39

claimed that Ybarra went to

Spain in search of the
original plans of the Alamo mission. Actually, Ybarra
merely consulted some contemporary drawings of
the mission and constructed a three-dimensional
Alamo that manages to suggest both authenticity
and mythic perceptions.
The famous Alamo chapel, the only build¬

ing left of the original compound in San Antonio,
measured and reproduced to scale. The rest of

was

the fortress

was

constructed at about 75% of the

original size. The distinctive humped gable on the
Alamo chapel's facade was not present at the time of
the battle, nor were the two upper windows; they
were added in 1850 when the U.S. Army occupied
the site. Ybarra's reproduction retains the upper
windows but leaves the top of the facade in a ruined
condition; the ridge of the chapel rises slightly,
suggesting the hump.
On top of the chapel, Ybarra placed a bro¬
ken cross, a reminder of the fort's past as a church.
"That was Wayne's idea," says Ybarra. "He said,
'Gimme something allegorical.' His exact words. I
said, 'No problem' and put a cross up there. The
thing didn't belong. It was all out of scale and
everything."
While the set

was

under construction,

Wayne appeared in John Huston's The Barbarian and

gravel and tar roads and a 4,000 foot long runway at
nearby Fort Clark to facilitate airplane access.
According to the massive press release put
together by Russell Birdwell, the production re¬
quired a million square feet of lumber, 40 miles of
reinforced steel, 125,000 square feet of concrete
flooring, 12 miles of water pipe and 30,000 square
feet of imported Spanish tile roofing.
If the reproduction of the Alamo was a
mixture of fact and fantasy, Ybarra didn't even
attempt to replicate the San Antonio of 1836. "I'd
seen
enough of these Mexican towns," he says, "so
I just designed it for the picture." Mexican towns of
the period were constructed around a series of
plazas but the Alamo's San Antonio looks like a
conventional Western town, complete with wide,
dusty street and lines of connected buildings. Happy
Shahan was to inherit the set after the completion of
production; since he planned on luring other West¬
erns to film at "Alamo
Village," he probably influ¬
enced Ybarra's construction plans.
An early trade ad for The Alamo claimed
that it would be filmed in Cinerama but Wayne soon
decided to use the 70mm Todd-AO process. His
cinematographer was a veteran of many Wayne
pictures, a man whose experience in movie epics
dates back to Wings (1927): William H. Clothier,

the Geisha (1958), Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959),
and John Ford's The Horse Soldiers (1959). From

ASC.

Japan, Arizona and Louisiana, Wayne kept in con¬
stant touch by telephone with Ybarra in Brackettville, overseeing every facet of the pre-produc¬

I made

tion work.
And there

was a

lot to

oversee.

A 40,000

gallon water tank was installed. Ten miles of under¬
ground wiring was laid. Batjac built 14 miles of

July 1990

was an

Richard Widmark is
on the lead horse,
Laurence

Harvey is

atop the Alamo, and
technical advisor
Jack Pennick

is at far right.

"I think [The Alamo] was the biggest picture
first cameraman," says Clothier. "There
awful lot of production in Wings that I've

as a

never seen in
any other picture, all those airplanes
and that big battlefield. The Alamo was concentrated
a lot more in the grounds of the Alamo, the battle
scenes and
everything. But it was still the biggest

picture I

American

ever

made."

Cinematographer

(in

drill instructor hat)

American Cinematographer - July 1990

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 1990