Undescribable Perfection

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Sterling Hayden (James Bowie), Anna Maria Alberghetti (Consuela), Richard Carlson (William Travis), Arthur Hunnicutt (Davy Crockett), Ernest Borgnine (Mike Radin), J. Carrol Naish (Santa Anna), Ben Cooper (Jeb Lacey), John Russell (Lieutenant Dickinson), Virginia Grey (Mrs Dickinson), Jim Davis (Evans), Eduard Franz (Lorenzo de Quesada), Otto Kruger (Stephen Austin), Russell Simpson (the parson), Roy Roberts (Dr Sutherland), Slim Pickens (Abe), Hugh Sanders (Sam Houston).Director: FRANK LLOYD. Screenplay: Warren Duff. Story: Sy Bartlett. Photographed in Trucolor by Jack Marta. Film editor: Tony Martinelli. Music: Max Steiner. Art director: Frank Arrigo. Set decorators: John McCarthy Jr, George Milo. Costumes: Adele Palmer. Make-up: Bob Mark. Title credits song, "A Man Six Feet Tall" by Sidney Clare (lyrics) and Max Steiner (music), sung by Gordon MacRae (a Capitol Recording Artist). Special effects: Howard Lydecker, Theodore Lydecker. Trucolor processing and optical effects: Consolidated Film Industries. Technical adviser: Captain John S. Peters. Assistant director: Herb Mendelson. Sound recording: Dick Tyler Sr, Howard Wilson. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: Frank Lloyd. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates. Location scenes filmed in Texas.Copyright 1955 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 3 August 1955. U.K. release: September 1955. Australian release through 20th Century-Fox: 22 June 1956. 110 minutes. (Cut to 106 minutes in the U.K.).NOTES: Other versions include Man of Conquest (1939), The Alamo (1960).COMMENT: After an extremely dull and talkative start, enlivened only by a knife fight between hero Bowie and heavy-but-soon-to-be-friend Borgnine, "The Last Command" settles down to an extremely dull and talkative middle, relieved only by a spot of action between Bowie's irregulars and a small detachment of Mexican cavalry.While we're waiting for the expected slap-up climax, we've got plenty of time to listen to patriotic speeches and much cornball philosophy about liberty and justice. Unfortunately, all this talk seems even less interesting in the mouths of surly and/or dull players. You can always tell a Republic production by the lack of quality in the support cast. In this one, that lack extends to the principals as well. Borgnine is the only player who manages a bit of charisma — and his role is small. We are left with bores like Richard Carlson, Arthur Hunnicutt, J. Carroll Naish and Eduard Franz. Plus Ben Cooper, one of the dullest juveniles of all time. Plus Miss Alberghetti. It's embarrassing to watch a nice girl trying to make something of the most dreadful dialogue tosh she's handed here. Wait for the scene in which Ben Cooper starts to share some romantic footage with Miss A. and you'll see at least a quarter of the audience leave their seats and walk out. Yes, with players like these, the true critic just knows he's going to be in for a pretty tedious time before the film even starts.Despite the comparatively large-scale budget with lots of uniformed soldiers and location lensing south of the border, Republic's largess didn't extend to decent color. Trucolor with its mismatched grading and unnatural skin colors that vary from deep sun-burnt to the whitest paleface, plus its awful propensity to flood the screen with red and orange, is the least attractive of all non-Technicolor systems.One of the best features of the movie is Max Steiner's music score, though one feels the composer is operating at only half-steam here. Melodic but mild. And as for that atrocious under-the-credits song delivered by Gordon MacRae of all people...As usual, director Lloyd is at his best with the action material. Elsewhere the script lets him down. Badly.OTHER VIEWS: Republic originally wanted John Wayne to star, but Duke wanted to do his own version of the Alamo. All the same, "The Last Command" does have some comparative interest as a scaled-down spectacle. With astute trimming — at least 30 minutes could go — it might even make a halfway passable picture. — G.A.

Frankly, I don't watch movies expecting to see historical accuracy. Movies are basically a commercial product marketed to earn a profit, which means pleasing as large an audience as possible. So, if there's a conflict between historical accuracy and constructing a more saleable story, we know generally which factor will prevail. That's simply the way our capitalistic system works. Thus, well-intended folks should not be surprised at the liberties taken in this supposed account of events surrounding the siege of the Alamo.That being said, I thought the movie was very enjoyable. I thought so back in 1955, and again the other night on TMC. It's a good lively cast. Hayden may not have liked his role, but he's motivated nonetheless—catch how much he puts into the emotional exhaustion when he raps in vain on a door and then faces the camera in near collapse. That's probably the most animated this fan of Hayden's has seen him in any movie. The under-rated Richard Carlson also delivers as Hayden's rival, and of course there's the inspired casting of Hunnicutt as Davy Crockett at a time when Disney's Crockett dominated the big screen and the pop music charts too. In fact, Hunnicutt's little speech after arriving at the fort amounts to a masterpiece of down-home eloquence. And Russell Simpson's parson of-very-few- words is just the kind of no-nonsense character you'd expect to find among a band of back- woodsmen. Too bad, however, that commercial factors required Alberghetti's role. She's fine as the teenage aristocrat, but the sub-plot pairing her with the very mature Hayden amounts to the movie's biggest drawback. One thing lowly Republic was good at is action sequences. Here the battle scenes and spectacle are outstanding—the collapsing parapet is both surprising and especially well done. For sure, the studio knew how to get the most out of limited resources, even as constraints show up around the edges, particularly with painted backdrops. Nonetheless, the enemy is treated with due respect, and I particularly liked the elegiac final scene with the traumatized women and children. It's just the kind of somber mood fitting for what has happened. Of course, Republic's reputation as a cowboy studio would never get its product much attention from either the press or the artistic community. Nonetheless, this is a surprisingly well-mounted and entertaining feature that can hold its own against bigger- budget action features of its day. Too bad, its many merits have been so generally overlooked.

The movie was shot at what today is called "The Alamo Village" in Blackettville Texas. It was not built for the 1960 John Wayne film "The Alamo",but Wayne did add a few temporary buildings that were torn down after the film was done. The 1980's TV film " The Alamo-13 days to Glory" was also filmed there. The is only a very small John Wayne museum at the Village. It is almost 200 miles from the real Alamo. Unlike the 2004 film,this too had the battle of the Alamo fought in the daylight and not at night. But Hayden at least was the same size as the real Jim Bowie.The real Bowie was about 6 feet 6 as was Hayden. The story was that Republic wanted John Wayne to play Bowie,but he went to South America to look for a place to do this film and when came back he was "fired" by the studio.

Made in spite by Yates, well shot and mounted, replete with an excellent cast, 'The Last Command' still remains good value even if it rather pales besides Wayne's grandiose epic of just a few years later. The much underrated Hayden is superb as "big Jim Bowie" and Hunnicutt equally as good as Davy Crockett. Hayden has the ability to appear gentle, naive, rugged and brusque all at once - something few other actors, with perhaps the exception of Spencer Tracy, managed. Unfortunately Crockett and his 29 men don't appear until some way in. With only Hayden's latent dynamism really keeping things afloat, the first half an hour of the film is rather talkative in exposition, and it drags somewhat. Consuela de Quesada (Anna Marie Alberghetti) is a limp romantic foil to Bowie - I for one would be happy to have seen her written out and the structure tightened through her absence. Ernest Borgnine plays his small role with gusto - his confrontation with Bowie a standout scene in a film full of fighting, although his later genial acceptance of Bowie's superiority as a man is perhaps emphasised by the script too much for comfort.Steiner's music (and especially the superb title song) goes a long way in making events move smoothly towards the climax. For it's the Alamo Battle the bums on seats will have come to see, and here it is done well (although again not *as* well as Wayne would manage with considerable more time and resources later (although any comparison isn't too much to the present film's detriment).In short this is well worth seeing, and it provides a contemporarily staged contrast to the better-known epic which was to follow. I'd still like to see an historically accurate account of the events at the mission, though...