War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Key Battles of the Texas Revolution.

This is your host, James, as always.

And as always, I am joined by Sean McIver.

This week, we are going to discuss a classic

Western and war movie, the 1960 version of the Alamo. You know, Sean, you know me, if you've

been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know that we're always going to try to

work in some movies to any war that we talk

about. And the Texas Revolution is no exception. There are many versions of movies about the

Alamo, but I decided to focus on the two that are probably the most well-known and the most

widely watched. So let's start with this 1960 version. Next week, we'll discuss

the 2004 version. Let me start with some basic information, as I always do. So the Alamo from

1960 is a pretty long movie. It's two hours and 42 minutes. It was somewhat lukewarmly received by the critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

The average positive score from the critics is only 52%.

The audience didn't give it much better.

They did give it a little better, but it's 64%.

And the average rating on IMDB is 6.8, which is lower than most of the movies we've discussed in the past.

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