The Alamo (1960)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Western	Theatrical Trailer-2.35:1 (non-16x9), Dolby Digital 2.0 Featurette-John Wayne's Alamo Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	1960
Running Time	155:02 (Case: 154)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (96:52)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Wayne
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	John Wayne Richard Widmark Laurence Harvey Frankie Avalon Patrick Wayne Linda Cristal Joan O'Brien Chill Wills Ken Curtis Carlos Arruza Jester Hairston Joseph Calleia Richard Boone
Case	DV-4
RPI	$31.95	Music	Dimitri Tiomkin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.20:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Portuguese Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Polish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    A Mexican general by the name of Santa Anna (Ruben Padilla) was heading north across Mexico towards Texas, destroying anyone who would constitute opposition. Colonel William Travis (Laurence Harvey) is given the task of keeping the Mexican General busy until General Sam Houston (Richard Boone) can put together a regiment with which to fight Anna. To cut a long story short, the situation reaches a climax with just over a hundred American soldiers, Colonel Davy Crockett (John Wayne) and Colonel Jim Bowie (Richard Windmark) among them, facing off against the several thousand under Santa Anna's command.

    The story is a typical testament to the bravery shown in battles by the American Colonists in the days when the United States were anything but. In any case, the film contains a great deal of personality conflicts and skirmishes that lead up to a climactic final battle.

    Those of you who have read my review of Red River will know that I am not a fan of the American-made Western, but this is an example of the genre done in a manner that approaches being right. Sure, some of the dialogue is rather silly, and the obligatory John Wayne philosophy speech is not only present and accounted for, but is by far one of the most chuckle-inducing examples thereof. The brief use of a romantic subplot seems completely unnecessary, and I am sure that I am not the only one who feels that a further fifteen minutes or more could have been excised from this film. I cannot help but much prefer the lack of speech in the Spaghetti Western, as it is impossible to imagine the combatants of the nineteenth century speaking in the manner they do in this film.

    While we're on the subject of judicious editing, several versions of this film exist in the USA right now: A 192-minute roadshow version, a 167-minute edit, and a 140-minute re-release that was issued in 1967. Judging from the running time of this DVD, it would appear to be a PAL transfer of the 167-minute edited version, which would seem to be the definitive version from what I am able to make out. As is the case with most Westerns, the film is riddled with clichés and stereotypes, or performances that have become either of those two things in the years since the film was released. Still, it is easy to understand why this is considered to be one of the classic Westerns, and if you're not put off by the glorified view of the Colonial Americans, then this film is worthy of a look.

Video

    Having just reviewed Red River, a fifty-two year old film from the same studio, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a forty year old film comes up remarkably well when produced by someone other than Columbia Tristar. Certainly, the film is not without its flaws, but this transfer is surprisingly easy to look at considering its age.

    The transfer is presented in the aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and it is 16x9 enhanced. This is slightly wider than the proper theatrical aspect ratio of 2.20:1, if you're particuarly fussy about that sort of thing.

    The transfer is as sharp and detailed as the film stock and photographic conditions allow, with a surprising clarity in the foreground that makes for a pleasant viewing experience. The shadow detail is fairly good for a film of this age, with all of the important details being well-lit in order to counter the lack of detail that comes from photographing unlit areas with a 1960s camera. There was no low-level noise at any point in the transfer.

    The colour saturation is typical of the time in which the film was shot, with a certain dullness being apparent.

    MPEG artefacts were not noted at any point in the transfer, with the lack of activity in most of the backgrounds making for imagery that would be more easily compressed. Film-to-video artefacts are a moderate problem from time to time, with hat brims and fine-lined Colonial furniture displaying a small amount of aliasing for a few minutes spread around the film. Some wobble, not necessarily of the telecine variety, is apparent during panning shots, with a shot of the Mexican regiment from 50:22 to 50:27 being the most noticeable example. Film artefacts were also a bit of a problem here and there, with medium sized scratches and lumps of dirt appearing on the picture for a few frames every now and again. However, when all is said and done, I have certainly noticed much younger films look a lot worse than this.

    This disc is presented in the RSDL format, with the layer change taking place between Chapters 25 and 26, at 96:52. This layer change was only noticeable because of the way my amplifier handled the brief change in the sound encoding, and it occurs in a natural fade to black that occurs between scenes. It is therefore completely non-intrusive.

Audio

    The transfer is presented in a choice of five soundtracks, with the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding. There are four foreign-language dubs, with a choice of German, French, Spanish, and Italian in Dolby Digital 2.0 that sounds like mono in spite of the redirection to two channels. I listened to the default English dialogue, while taking the time to sample some dialogue in German and Spanish for good measure.

    The dialogue was perfectly clear and easy to understand at all times, with every speech by John Wayne being unusually well-amplified. Audio sync didn't appear to be a problem either at the transfer or recording level.

    The score music by Dimitri Tiomkin is much like that which he contributed to Red River, with a warm, bouncy feel that made me think of a certain rendition of the theme from Rawhide as performed by the Blues Brothers in the film of the same name. As score music goes, you could certainly do a lot worse than this film, even if the themes used have a certain ring to them. A soundtrack CD is apparently available in the USA, which might be worth investigating considering the positive comments it has received from fans of the film.

    The surround presence of this film is somewhat limited, with the surround information being monophonic in nature, as you'd expect from such an old film. Some music found its way into the rear channels, as did some minor ambient sound. Fundamentally, this was simply a stereo mix with some support from the surround channels to create a more immersive listening experience than the original theatrical exhibition could probably provide. The subwoofer received some minor redirected signal during the battle scenes, but one could have easily turned off the subwoofer and not noticed any difference.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Featurette - John Wayne's Alamo

    The Region 4 version of this DVD misses out on;

• Correct aspect ratio of 2.20:1

• Dolby Digital 5.1 sound

    An extended version of this film was meant to be released at some time in 2001, but it does not appear to have surfaced as yet. This makes the Region 1 version slightly preferable for the Dolby Digital 5.1 remix and the correct aspect ratio.

    The video quality is excellent for a film of this age.

    The audio quality is very good for a film of this age.

    The extras are somewhat limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall