Texas was a complicated affair in the 1830s, filled with people of mixed agendas and desires to establish claims of land and "unfettered freedom". Disaffected people from the US and Mexico had a stake in it. Mexico was losing control...
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Texas was a complicated affair in the 1830s, filled with people of mixed agendas and desires to establish claims of land and "unfettered freedom". Disaffected people from the US and Mexico had a stake in it. Mexico was losing control of its northern provinces. Not a lot of this comes through in this movie, with its wide brush strokes and fairly simple shooting style. Colonel Travis certainly comes through as unsympathetic - not based on a lot of history but understandable in order to give some characterization.

John Wayne's Crockett is pretty amusing, unlike Jim Bowie, he has no problems asserting his superiority, fighting, drinking, and people skills. While he was an elected Congressman, Crockett as played by Wayne shifts from moral platitudes to frontier folksy a little too quickly in the script here. The love story is wasted and shallow, actually closer to a plot device to demonstrate of Crockett's control over his men. And Santa Ana and his troops are nothing more than marching cartoons - men carrying flags.

Still, there is that stirring quality of underdogs and fighting for a cause that gets to you on viewing, and was obviously planned all along. I have to admit that I like a "western" that has a bigger overall theme, especially historical (even if the history is a little hollow and twisted).