(Credits: Far Out / Paramount Pictures)
Sat 31 January 2026 20:09, UK
As one of the biggest stars of his era, John Wayne had grown accustomed to getting his own way more often than not, only for ‘The Duke’ to discover when making his feature-length debut that directing a movie posed its own set of challenges.
The legendary star had been toying with the idea of helming a retelling of the Battle of the Alamo since the mid-1940s, but it wouldn’t be until October 1960 that the end result hit cinemas. It wasn’t long before budgetary concerns arose during those formative, which ended with Wayne leaving Republic Pictures altogether after butting heads with the boardroom, but he was contractually forbidden from taking the script with him upon his exit.
The initial version ideated by Wayne was eventually released as 1955’s The Last Command with Sterling Bowen as Jim Bowie, leaving John Ford’s most famous collaborator to form his own production company for the express purpose of realising his vision of turning his Alamo story into a major motion picture.
He was happy to star and produce, but at first, he wasn’t interested in being part of the cast, only to discover that nobody was willing to finance such a risky and expensive gambit without his world-famous face being plastered all over the marketing. Bowing to the demands, Wayne agreed to play the lead role of Davy Crockett.
He still invested millions of his own dollars into the production, with Ford inevitably swinging by during the shoot to weigh in on his protege’s first time stepping behind the camera. Wayne already had a reputation for being a prickly sort, and the additional pressures of producing and directing alongside his starring role ultimately boiled over.
Richard Widmark took second billing behind ‘The Duke’ as Jim Bowie in The Alamo, but the two headstrong actors didn’t always see eye-to-eye. In fact, it was revealed in Pilar Wayne and Alex Thorleifson’s biography John Wayne: My Life with The Duke things got so fraught between the pair that there was a “violent confrontation” between them that saw Wayne exert his dominance.
Widmark “kept on arguing with Duke in front of the cast and crew” after misinterpreting Wayne’s patience for the filmmaking process as “a sign of weakness,” a mistake he’d never make again after the Western icon grew so tired of having his authority questioned that he “threw the smaller man against the wall.” It did have the desired effect, though, with the director never again finding his authority challenged for the duration of the production.
What the experience ultimately revealed was just how different authority looks when it shifts from star to filmmaker. Wayne had spent decades as the unquestioned centre of a production, but directing required a different kind of control, one built on trust, patience and persuasion rather than sheer presence. The friction with Widmark was less an isolated incident than a symptom of a man learning, in real time, that commanding a set was far more complicated than commanding the screen.
In that sense, The Alamo stands as a fascinating contradiction in Wayne’s legacy. It was a personal triumph, a film he willed into existence through stubbornness, money and sheer force of belief, yet it also marked the limits of that approach. Wayne proved he could direct a large-scale epic, but the cost, financial and personal, ensured it would never become a regular part of his career. The Duke got his Alamo, but it came at a price he was unwilling to pay again
The Alamo turned out just fine in the long run after becoming a box office success and landing seven Academy Award nominations, including ‘Best Picture’, but Wayne never saw a return on his investment after selling the rights to United Artists in order to cover the money he’d put in. The set also gained a long lease of second life as a tourist attraction and hotbed for industry location shoots, making it a little ironic that his first film as director proved so successful without Wayne reaping any of the tangible rewards.
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