The Road to Fort Alamo

The Road to Fort Alamo (Italian: La strada per Fort Alamo) is a 1964 Western film directed by Mario Bava.

The Road to Fort Alamo
Italian film poster
Directed byMario Bava
Produced byAchille Piazzi[1]
Screenplay by
Starring
Music byPiero Umiliani[1]
CinematographyUbaldo Terzano[1]
Edited byMario Serandrei[1]
Production
companies
  • Piazzi Produzione Cinematografica
  • Protor Film
  • Comptoir Francis du Film Production[1]
Distributed byBelotti Film[1]
Release date
  • 24 October 1964 (1964-10-24) (Italy)
  • 24 March 1965 (1965-03-24) (France)
Country
  • Italy
  • France[2]
Box office£130 million

Cast
  • Ken Clark as Bill Mannerly/"Lieutenant John Smith" (Bud Massidy in the English version)
  • Jany Clair as Janet
  • Michel Lemoine as Kid Carson
  • Andreina Paul as Mrs. Collins
  • Alberto Cevenini (as Kirk Bert) as Slim Kincaid/"Private Jim Kincaid"
  • Gustavo De Nardo (as Dean Ardow) as Sergeant Warwick (Sergeant Carter)
  • Antonio Gradoli (as Anthony Gradwell) as Captain Hull (Captain Hollis)
  • Gérard Herter (uncredited) as Mr. Silver

Background and production

The Road to Fort Alamo was produced before the genre of the spaghetti western had really established itself with A Fistful of Dollars[3] European Westerns had become popular with Germany's Rialto Film bought the rights to Karl May's Wetern novels and characters and made several films with director Harald Reinl with his Winetou series.[1] Some of the films in that series were international co-productions involving Italian funding.[1] As they became more successful in Italy, Italian investors began producer their own Westerns with four produced in 1964: Mario Costa's Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West, Sergio Corbucci's Minnesota Clay, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and The Road to Fort Alamo.[1]

Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas described The Road to Fort Alamo was being inspired by the German Winnetou films opposed to the style Leone developed with A Fistful of Dollars.[4] The Road to Fort Alamo was filmed at Elios Film Studios in Rome and on location betwee February and March 1964.[1] Michel Lemoine who had a small role in the film spoke about his work on it with Bava later, stating that Bava "was an extraordinary director and he needed all of his talent to get through [The Road to Fort Alamo], because it was really difficult. The producers had money problems with that picture, and Bava had to fight constantly"[5][6]

Franco Prosperi who worked on the film had distaste towards it, stating that "Mario was useless at making Westerns; he had no talent for it. I disown [The Road to Fort Alamo] completely; it was kind of a disaster."[7]

Release

The Road to Fort Alamo was distributed by Comptoir Français du Film as Arizona Bill in France on March 24, 1965.[1][2] The title was to put the film into the tradition of the twenty Arizona Bill films made in Francebetween 1907 and 1913 with Joe Hamman.[1] In the United States where it was distributed by World Entertainment Corporation on July 10, 1966.[1]

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References
  1. Lucas 2013, p. 582.
  2. "The Road to Fort Alamo". Unifrance.org. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
  3. Lucas 2013, p. 581.
  4. Lucas 2013, p. 583.
  5. Lucas 2013, p. 585.
  6. Lucas 2013, p. 586.
  7. Lucas 2013, p. 591.

Sources
  • Lucas, Tim (2013). Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark. ISBN 0-9633756-1-X.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)


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