War movies, the good, the bad, the ugly.

[RCMerchant]

I'd have to agree on the ALAMO (1960) . What a waste of film stock.
Do film series count?
Because Ken Burn's VIETNAM (2017) is excellent.
Also his the CIVIL WAR (1990) series.
So is the WORLD AT WAR (1974) series.

[Pacman000]

Hmmmm... Santa Anna's army did let some women & children go at the end of the movie. They even showed great respect for them. That's hardly savage or animal-like. Sure, the film broke things into a simple good guys vs. bad guys scenario, with the Mexican army playing the bad guys, but that's not in-and-of itself racist.

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I always liked this scene because it showed the Mexican army as something besides monsters, in spite of all the horrors of the battle.  It's also well scored & well shot; basically every shot could be a painting depicting the end of a battle.

As for history...  The earliest surviving account of the battle was written about 20 years after the event took place. The film's historians did disown the movie, claiming they were mostly ignored. Some of the events portrayed in the movie broadly match what I've read of the actual battle, but I'm willing to bet 90% of the film was made up.

[indianasmith]

As a Texas historian, I can tell you that John Wayne's movie gets virtually all the historical details wrong.
However, it does leave you with a sense of what the Alamo was about.
The 2004 movie THE ALAMO is far and away the most historically accurate Alamo movie ever made - and it crashed and burned at the box office!
I still like it though.

[Svengoolie 3]

As a Texas historian, I can tell you that John Wayne's movie gets virtually all the historical details wrong.
However, it does leave you with a sense of what the Alamo was about.
The 2004 movie THE ALAMO is far and away the most historically accurate Alamo movie ever made - and it crashed and burned at the box office!
I still like it though.

Yeah the ads for it looked good.

[Trevor]

As a Texas historian, I can tell you that John Wayne's movie gets virtually all the historical details wrong.
However, it does leave you with a sense of what the Alamo was about.

I remember you telling me a few years back that the battle actually took place at night and in the early morning (the film shows it as happening during the day) and that the film showed the battle taking place in the wrong season entirely, amongst other things.

Also, there were no Lithuanian born, South African raised and educated Englishmen at the Alamo. 

[RCMerchant]

I always liked the World War I movie  ALL'S QUITE ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930). It's an early (and rare for the time) view of the first world war from the other side.

[Svengoolie 3]

The 300 Spartans  was done in an area that hardly resembled Thermopylae....

[indianasmith]

I don't know if I have mentioned it in this thread or not, but I loved FLYBOYS.
Highly inaccurate as far as war history goes, but those dogfights were pure eye candy for a kid who grew up reading about the Red Baron and all the other aces of the Great War.