Remember, ah, you know

This week’s feature was The Man From the Alamo, starring Glen Ford as John Stroud as the man who was called a coward. Stroud was at the Alamo, but his heart is back with his wife and son, on their ranch, up near Oxbow. Him and five other fellows make a pact for one of them to go back up north to get their families safe, ahead of the Mexican troops. Stroud draws the bad lot and heads north.

But the Alamo falls and everyone thinks Stroud just took off to save his own skin.

Ford plays Stroud as one cool cucumber, letting charges of cowardice and threats of hanging roll off his back. From the moment that he finds that his family is dead and his home destroyed, he sets on killing the men who did it.

This is a good looking movie, by the by. It’s shot in warm tones and it captures the wide open range. The shelling of the Alamo is convincing. A movie should be easy on the eyes.

In the end, Stroud does kill the turncoats who killed his family, saves the townfork, and goes to fight for Texan independence. More importantly, he convinces all the Texans that he isn’t a coward. In the old west honor society, it isn’t enough to not be a coward. You have to have a good name, as well.

So, is John Stroud a coward? The movie goes out of its way to say that he isn’t. First, he was leaving to protect his family and the families of others. Second, he was given permission by his commander to leave. Finally, he meant to go back, as soon as the families were safe.

It doesn’t wash, for me. Stroud knew that his family would face hardship without him. The battle of the Alamo was not a sterile feat of glory, fighting simply to fight. The longer they held that mission, the longer that the Texans had to get a force ready to fight. Putting his own judgement ahead of that of the commanders is not the same kind of act of bravery that fighting is.