MovieChat Forums > The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987) Discussion > strongly hated it

strongly hated it

posted 18 years ago by Guess_Who05
6 replies | jump to latest

i had to watch this garbage in school. im in 7th grade and everyone laughed at this movie

[–] tgs333 18 years ago

Have you watched it recently? I watched it when it first came on tv back in 1987, I was 14. I just got my first muzzle loading rifle, so I thought the movie was kinda neat...them firing off all their muskets and what not.

Sadly it is a very slooooooooooooooooowwww movie, by today's standards...almost laughable....66 year old Brian Keith playing a 49 year old Davy Crockett...the music...the re-use of scenes from past Alamo movies. But to most extent, a fairly accurate potrayal of the Alamo battle, with the expection of what men wore and looked like at the time.

If you want to learn more about the Alamo, check out the book: 3 Roads to the Alamo by William C. DAvis.

"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep."

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 15 years ago

I suppose you know Arness started out as a John Wayne clone except he was taller than Marion Morrison, Wayne's real name. Arness never wanted to become more than Wayne so he settled for being less even though Wayne's version of same story is anything but inspired.

Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.

[–] pjwoodall1 15 years ago

I seem to remember Wayne wanted Arness to play Houston, but Anress wanted to play Bowie. Wayne hired Richard Boone instead. Check out ISLAND IN THE SKY which Wayne's family kept on the shelf for decades. Not as good as THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY but it has a great cast: Lloyd Nolan, Arness, Andy Devine, Bob Steele,, Fess Parker, etc. Like THATM, Waye may be the star but he is very generous with his fellow cast members.

[–] bear022013-588-696101 14 years ago

you have no idea what you are mumbling about!

[–] magic8ball2112 13 years ago

Well I was working at THE Alamo when it re-aired on TV many years after its 1987 premiere, and, next day, the guide staff made about 20 minutes worth of jokes at the expense of the movie!

Mind you, when it aired in '87 I was about 16 & thought it was pretty neat. Knowing what I knew when I saw it again, 10 years later, the errors/inaccuracies stuck out.

-An Englishman on Santa Anna's staff? An Italian, yes? A Cuban, yes? Mexicans? Of course. An Englishman? Nope.

-General Cos dying?!? lol, he was present at San Jacinto, 6 weeks after the Alamo, and taken prisoner right along w/ his boss Why the movie engineered some kind of conflict between Santa Anna & Cos, I just don't know.

-Most annoying, at least to THE Alamo staff: the movie's assertion that Jim Bowie & Santa Anna were related by marriage. Um, no!
10 years after this flick people were still coming in wanting to know if that 'connection' was true.

Apart from that, there are little looping 'goofs' that provided great laughs:
-the SAME horse-drawn carriage that drives by Santa Anna's tent everytime the story goes back to Santa Anna. Its basically the same shot over & over, but one has to wonder where this formal carriage came from out in the middle of nowhere, and where its going to!

-during the assault, Travis's actions (taking part with the Alamo church behind him rather than at the north wall, where he died) are looped over & over: pistol shot, sword thrust!, pistol shot, sword thrust!

And keeping with the thinking that miscast Keith as William McKinley in The Rough Riders, having him cast as Crockett (not to mention dressed more like an ol' Western cowboy than the Lion of the West) was quite baffling!

[–] sisko_md 11 years ago

Yup, can't remember seeing so may lousy dying acts in one scene.