Billy Bob Thornton and Patrick Wilson tried their best…
Ever since the early days of cinema, filmmakers have turned to inspiring stories from history as a source of inspiration. Classic films like Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Cleopatra, How The West Was Won, and Lawrence of Arabia took important historical events and used them as the basis for dramatic storytelling. Among the most popular “epics” of this era was John Wayne’s 1960 Western classic The Alamo. Although Wayne starred in countless Western adventure films, The Alamo attempted to recount the most famous battle in Texas history and pay tribute to the men who died fighting the Centralist Republic of Mexico. There was clearly a special touch that Wayne had that other filmmakers simply could not replicate. When Patrick Wilson, Billy Bob Thorton, and Dennis Quaid attempted to star in a 2004 remake, it became one of the biggest bombs at the box office.
John Wayne’s ‘The Alamo’ Isn’t Historically Accurate
What’s ironic about the Battle of the Alamo itself is that the event itself has little historical significance. In 1836, a group of radical colonists who had settled the land in Texas attempted to declare independence from the centralized Mexican government amidst the Texas Revolution. The Texan Army, which consisted primarily of settlers from the United States, had successfully purged soldiers from the Mexican Army out of the territory a few months prior to the Alamo conflict. A stronger legion of troops serving under the Mexican President General Antonio López de Santa Anna led an offensive campaign and seized a mission known as “The Alamo” that had been fortified by Texan troops. While the events have been mythologized by popular culture, the battle itself was a bloodbath in which the entire Texan defending force was massacred over the course of a 13-day siege. The heroism of iconic historical figures like Davy Crockett is mostly a result of legend.
However, truth has never been something that has mattered to filmmakers when telling historical stories; the lack of legitimate facts within historical films like Braveheart and Gladiator didn’t make them any less entertaining. Wayne took advantage of the battle’s cultural significance and crafted a larger-than-life story of brave rebels resisting a larger-than-life villainous invading force. While in actuality Crockett’s service at the Alamo was mostly fiction, he had become a more popular historical icon as a result of a series of Walt Disney adventure films about his life. It made sense that Wayne would cast himself as this eccentric Tennessee frontiersman. His version of The Alamo attempted to transform the battle into a narrative about Crockett’s “one-man war” fighting for liberty.
While John Wayne’s politics and the film’s depiction of Mexican characters have not aged well, 1960’s The Alamo was relatively successful during its initial release. At that point in his career, Wayne had yet to earn any Academy Award nominations, but The Alamo earned him a nomination (as a producer) for Best Picture. The film also earned nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Original Song (“The Green Leaves Of Summer”), Best Supporting Actor (Chill Wills), and a win for Best Sound. It marked a significant improvement for Wayne as a director and led him to direct further classics such as 1968’s The Green Berets and 1971’s Big Jake. The Alamo isn’t a film that any history teacher should ever show, nor should it be taken literally given the problematic nature of John Wayne’s framing of the conflict. Nonetheless, The Alamo works as a piece of blockbuster entertainment, which isn’t something that the 2004 version could say.
Why Did Billy Bob Thornton and Patrick Wilson’s ‘The Alamo’ Bomb?
