The First Texan

From the time I watched Fess Parker as Davy Crockett in the Disneyland episodes and John Wayne's The Alamo, I was hooked on the story of the famous 13-day siege in 1836 that ended with the massacre of the whole garrison on March 6.  It was a natural jumping off point to the whole Texas War of Independence which took place between late 1836 and spring 1836 as Texas fought for its freedom from Mexico. It's a little stretch of history that often gets overlooked in the shadow of the Alamo massacre, but one of our country's most unsung heroes, Sam Houston, played a major role in the war and the formation of Texas into one of the United States.

Now before I write this, yes, I realize Houston has a city named after him, but his name isn't always synonymous with the other heroes of the war for independence, Crockett, Bowie, Travis, Seguin, Stephen Austin.  He was a larger than life individual who hasn't always gotten his due through history.  In 2004's The Alamo played by Dennis Quaid, Houston's part was severely cut.  A 1980s TV movie Gone for Texas is a mediocre effort at telling his story even with a solid lead performance from Sam Elliott.  Add 1956's The First Texan to the list of bland attempts at telling Houston's involvement in Texas' fight for freedom in 1836.

In 1832, former Tennessee governor Sam Houston (Joel McCrea) rides into the Mexican province of Texas looking to start fresh with his life after a personal scandal back home helped ruin his reputation. Rumors abound about a coming fight with Mexico for Texas independence with infamous knife fighter and land owner Jim Bowie (Jeff Morrow) among the leaders who approach Houston to join the cause. Smitten by a young woman, Katherine Delaney (Felicia Farr), he meets in San Antonio, Sam just wants to move on with his life and build up his law practice. A natural leader like he is though, it's only a matter of time before he gets pulled into the conflict, especially when tensions escalate between the Texans and the Mexican government, prompting General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (David Silva) to lead his army into Texas.

For starters, McCrea is a solid choice to play Sam Houston beginning with his physical resemblance.  Houston was a big man in real life, standing over 6' feet tall.  In one of his later roles, McCrea's presence lends itself well to this larger than life character.  Through most of his westerns, he typically played roles like this anyways, stout, resolute, heroic men who stood by their word and their gun as needed.  Making the jump then to play Houston (who by all accounts was a man like that) isn't a huge stretch then for McCrea.  He can be a little stiff at times, and his forced relationship with Farr's Catherine is unnecessary, but it's a solid leading performance.  Too bad the rest of the cast (mostly B-movie actors and TV guest stars) isn't quite up to the standard.

Biographies of a historical figure are always a tough project to tackle, especially in B-westerns like this that clock in at a slim 82 minutes.  Four years are glossed over in Houston's life in less than 90 minutes.  The scope and perspective are limited from the start with a smallish budget.  Worse though is that nothing is really done to try and disguise this.  The first 70 minutes are so ridiculously dialogue heavy that the whole pace of the movie gets thrown off.  The massacre at the Alamo is talked about but not shown (I'm assuming because of budget constraints), and then the next 20 minutes shows the Runaway Scrape. Watching men retreat across Texas and then bitching about it at night doesn't make for the most exciting visual experience either.  By the time the battle of San Jacinto arrives, it is just too late to save the movie.

For an Alamo and history buff, I look for certain things in movies like this that just have to work, have to click if the movie's going to be successful.  All the big names are here, starting with Morrow's Bowie and continuing on to Davy Crockett (James Griffith), William Travis (William Hopper), Stephen Austin (Dayton Lummis), scout Deaf Smith (Chubby Johnson), Mexican colonel Cos (Rodolfo Hoyos Jr), among several other recognizable names.  Unfortunately, the script basically pushes these guys aside for fictional characters who do the same things but with different names. There are so many characters they all become lost in the shuffle, hard to distinguish them all from each other.  One bright spot is McCrea's son, Jody McCrea as Lt. Baker, one of Houston's aides.

Trying to avoid sounding like that pretentious 'I know everything about history' guy, I'll keep this brief.  For the few topics I actually know something about, I hate seeing those things mangled in movie form.  'Texan' certainly plays free and easy with historical accuracy.  Sure, some of the mistakes can be chalked up to budget and time limitations, but The First Texan does a poor job overall, just randomly making things up and tweaking other things for the sake of doing it.  This isn't a good or bad movie. It's just boring, and is an inoffensive enough way to kill 82 minutes. I just wish it could have been better.

The First Texan (1956): **/****