The Touchstone Pictures film The Alamo, released on this day in 2004, represented movie making on a grand scale, telling the larger-than-life story of how fewer than 200 men, led by such historical figures as James Bowie and Davy Crockett, tried to hold a small mission called the Alamo against the much-larger force of Mexican General Santa Anna. The lavish production was filmed in CinemaScope on location in Texas on a sprawling set. Featuring 70 structures on 51 acres, it was the largest set ever built in North America. The film’s final battle scene, which actually lasted a little less than six hours in the pre-dawn morning of March 6, 1836, took more than a month to capture on film. The movie strived for the utmost in authenticity; the mission’s chapel facade looks as it appeared at the time of the battle, not topped with the iconic “hump” that was added years after the battle, and many of the extras in the movie are descendants of the actual defenders of the Alamo.
