Boring, long, and too preachy.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Although not as long as films like "Gone With The Wind" or "Duel In The Sun", it still had an epic feel to it. Virginia Mayo's character was cunning in the way that Vivien Leigh's Scarlet was to that film, but not as sympathetic or likable. I like Alan Ladd as an actor, but he was no Clark Gable. All in all this is an enjoyable Technicolor feature, with the same composer of GWTW, Max Steiner as a nice bonus.

I live in Bowie County, one of 37 counties in Texas that were made while Texas was a Republic, and this County was named for James Bowie, a hero of the Alamo and a Hero of the the Republic. The rest of the story is not so heroic. James Bowie was a forger, thief, horrible human being and land thief. In this area of Texas, he is loved for being at the end of the Alamo and being an irascible scoundrel who forged land grants, forged Spanish grants and just did some terrible, fitful things. He killed a lot of people in duels but having his name being kindly lent? Nope. Now in Texas, where I live, the Bowie knife is a real and really big thing. I own one and strap it to my leg when I go out to the wilderness. And it is a big wilderness. The area where Jim Bowie plied his trade (thievery) is full of big pines and lots, and I mean lots of water. We go out to the big lakes, but not one has been made by man. Only Caddo Lake, South East of where I live, is man made. That's where Jim Bowie made his claim. I don't want to go any further into this but Jim, or James Bowie as he has been called in this area, is claimed as a hero. But this movie is terrible at accuracy, wonderful for remembrance.

Viewers of this film shouldn't confuse anything here with actual history. By all accounts, Jim Bowie was a violent, unscrupulous fellow who later became a raging drunk after his wife and child died. Whether or not he died fighting at the Alamo, or just simply died there confined to his bed, has never been determined by any historian. That said, Alan Ladd does a fine job as an "heroic" version of Bowie in this film, taken from the popular 1950's novel of the same name. Virginia Mayo never looked better than she did in this film. The fact that her character has very few good qualities only helps the film and her performance. The production values of this film are high and in keeping with the standards of the day for period pieces. Director Gordon Douglas does excellent work with his cast, despite the mediocre material and some dubious history in the script. This movie did very well at the box office upon its release, and it's easy to see why.

I've never really been a fan of westerns, I didn't grow up with them and I always thought the genre was overrated personally.Occasionally however a film comes along which has distinct appeal despite its genre, this is such a film. I'm not 100% sure why I liked it or why it stood out from the pack, there is a certain intangible aspect to it which really appeals; the closest thing that I can think of is `The Mountain' (1956, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner), it is a film which I believe has that same intangible quality.I'd recommend this one for both western fan and non western fan (like myself) alike.