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and Colonel Travis, the point is well-taken. It may also occur to some that he is suggesting that the easy answer to today’s complex problems is to pit this raw courage against Russia’s ten million Santa Annas, the result of which may well be a worldwide Alamo and instead of a shrine we may have only a cosmic incinerator full of ashes. If this is what Wayne is proposing, the defenders of the Alamo were not only brave but smarter than those who speak for them. Their fate was extinction but this was not their purpose.”

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Over the years the film has gained greater acclaim, and I am at a loss to understand those who damned the film in 1960 (and those old boys who still insist on damning it today). I was not the only one.

Laurence Harvey said, “The critics were most unkind about just about everything to do with the film, which I understand was something of a backlash against Wayne’s politics. I mean, they absolutely tore him and the film apart. I couldn’t understand why it was criticized so vehemently.”

The screenplay by James Edward Grant has, at times, a simple poetry to it that gives the film an authentic feeling for what Travis describes as “cracker-barrel philosophy” and “homespun wisdom.”

Critics accused Grant’s screenplay of being too “talky,” but it is the dialogue that carefully establishes the characters.

Wayne gave me his response: “When we premiered the film, everyone said it was too long. I said, ‘How can it be too long? It’s not as long as Gone with the Wind, and that didn’t have any action scenes in at all.’ It was the fucking critics. The left-wing critics on the East Coast—they still had it in for me, and they didn’t like the idea I was saying that freedom from dictatorship was bought with blood. They didn’t like it that I was using the Alamo as a metaphor for America, and although I wanted to show the Mexicans with dignity, it was a warning against anything that stole our freedom, and yes, that included Communism.

“They didn’t like that. They criticized my politics, not my film. So United Artists said, ‘We gotta lose half an hour.’ It broke my heart cutting so much out of my picture. But I know the people liked it.

They still do. People still tell me they like it. That picture meant more to me— means more to me—than any other picture I made. Or will make.”

Only recently have I been able to see Wayne’s original 192-minute version, and among the scenes thrown out are some of the so-called “talky” scenes that explain the motivations of both Bowie and Travis. The film suffers for its cutting of some 30-odd minutes.

Wayne’s performance has moments of exceptional emotion.

His own style of minimal delivery coupled with Grant’s often economical dialogue make for the most effective. Such a moment occurs in the scene in which Crockett sends Flaca, with whom he has 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 221

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only just fallen in love, away to safety. There is a look of deep despair in Crockett’s eyes as the parson says, “You never pray, do you, Davy.” Wayne almost turns from the camera as he replies in a low voice, as though he is trying not to show his heartbreak, “I never found the time.” Those few words and Wayne’s delivery tell a whole story.

Richard Widmark is excellent, Laurence Harvey is also good, and after the spectacular but ultimately tragic battle, the final scene of Mrs. Dickinson, her daughter Lisa, and their small Negro slave boy leaving the shattered mission brings a lump to the throat. Except for those with hard hearts.

Critics of the film have taken delight in stating that the film was not a financial success and lost money. Wayne was correct when he told me, “The critics always say it lost money. It only lost me money.

United Artists did very well out of it. I sold all my shares in the picture to them to help pay off the debt I’d got myself in, and I ended up doing some work for them for free, so they were the ones who earned all the money.

“It cost 12 million dollars to make, and it took in almost 8 million dollars in