Heroes of the Alamo (DVD)

In 1833, ruthless Mexican General Antonia Santa Anna sets up border blockades to prevent American settlers from completing their frontier journeys into Texas. He has also reneged on a promise not to tax the 30,000 US emigres already living there. A fiery rabble rouser, William H. Wharton, calls for an immediate war of independence against the general's regime, but land grant holder Stephen Austin urges diplomacy. After jailing Austin for advocating insurrection, the infamous generalissimo launches an invasion on the newly declared Republic of Texas. Homesteader Almerian Dickinson joins the fight against the dictator's powerful army - a brutal battle that will lead to the historic showdown at an old Franciscan mission called the Alamo. Outnumbered ten to one, the heroic defenders refuse to surrender to Santa Anna, and are slaughtered to the last man.

Dedicated to the 183 American martyrs who perished at the makeshift fortress on March 6, 1836, Heroes Of The Alamo incorporates impressive battle footage from producer Anthony J. Xydias' 1926 silent film, Davy Crockett At The Fall Of The Alamo. The famous frontiersman is played by Lane Chandler, a veteran of hundreds of films from Hollywood's golden age, including the original Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials, Cecil B. DeMille's epics of the '30s and '40s, and such classics as Sergeant York (1941), They Died With Their Boots On (1941), and Red River (1948).

• western