This is a version of the Alamo story often overlooked mainly because it focuses on Jim Bowie as opposed to Davy Crockett as the central character. Sterling Hayden in one of the many roles he truly hated before escaping to the seas is a stalwart and heroic Bowie.
As I said though in another review of a film with Bowie as the central character, Jim Bowie was anything but heroic. He was a land swindler, slave dealer, no good con man who very few people had anything nice to say about. He was a tough guy though, no question about that and the famous Bowie knife was made to his specifications.
Bowie was married into the Mexican aristocracy and did suffer the horrible tragedy of having his wife and children taken in an epidemic of the plague. We never see them here or in the John Wayne film or in the new Disney epic.
Possibly the best acting honors do go to Arthur Hunnicutt who was more the backwoods character that Davy Crockett was then John Wayne. Billy Bob Thornton in the 2004 Alamo was probably the best Davy Crockett ever put on film and the most accurate.
Probably too much is now known for the general public to appreciate a film like The Last Command. The principals at the Alamo were three dimensional characters and not the cardboard cutouts they are here.
