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Wonderful character development!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

While I am no expert on the life of James Bowie, I know enough to realize that this Warner Brothers production is pretty limp. Instead of focusing on the man's actual exploits (and they were many and amazingly wild for a man who died so young), the film focuses too often on a soap opera-like relationship between him and some dame (Virginia Mayo)--and I assume most, if not all, of this was made up for the movie. It's a shame, as the man was truly a rugged individualist and a bit dangerous--just the sort of thing that SHOULD have been a lot more interesting than this film.There are a few things I wish the film had shown, they would have made it more fun and interesting. In the crazy duel run amok where Bowie is shot (which is in the film), the actual evens are even crazier and bloody--not only was Bowie shot but he was smashed in the head with the gun butt and stabbed with a sword--a sword that got stuck in him!! As the assassin tried to dislodge it, Bowie eviscerated him with his knife!! Also, there is really nothing about Bowie and the War for Texan Independence--not just his death at the Alamo but all the fighting he did BEFORE this! Because of this, the film just seems very incomplete and focuses on the dullest (and probably apocryphal) aspects of his crazy life.

Gordon Douglas was something of a poor man's Michael Curtiz at Warner Brothers inasmuch as he could turn his hand to just about any genre the studio assigned him to. In the early fifties Alan Ladd had run out of exotic locations to meet Veronica Lake and William Bendix at Paramount and although his greatest performance and greatest Paramount film by far (Shane) was already in the can though unreleased his agent wife Sue Carroll brokered a deal that took him to Warners who, being hip to his stand-out performance in Shane, laid on another 'Western' to welcome him aboard. As a biography of Jim Bowie it fits where it touches and concludes with no reference to the Alamo - probably a bit tricky as Bowie winds up the movie married to the daughter of a Mexican official. That aside it's a fine example of the genre with Ladd on top of his game albeit playing Bowie as a nice guy who can't seem to help killing people, mostly as a result of his involvement with super-bitch socialite Virginia Mayo. In terms of Ladd's overall career it ranks well inside the top half and will surely entertain nine out of ten viewers.

Great Movie.. with the legendary Character Jim Bowie, and the legendary Knive, and how it came to be.Tales of how Jim Bowie came to become the legend; and how not to fall for the wrong women.If only he had listen to his brother/s and family about his love. Alan Ladd was excellent in this, as was Virgina Mayo....and he rest of the cast.Great movie. It really is.Is this released as a DVD yet? Please can someone tell me...???? I would love to get this film on DVDMaybe even this film could be remade for a new generation with even more detail given to how the knife was made etc, etcBut who would star????

I've never really been a fan of westerns, I didn't grow up with them and I always thought the genre was overrated personally.Occasionally however a film comes along which has distinct appeal despite its genre, this is such a film. I'm not 100% sure why I liked it or why it stood out from the pack, there is a certain intangible aspect to it which really appeals; the closest thing that I can think of is `The Mountain' (1956, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner), it is a film which I believe has that same intangible quality.I'd recommend this one for both western fan and non western fan (like myself) alike.