The Alamo was directed by John Wayne and also featured him in the lead role of Davy Crockett. The film is a semi-historical account of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo and co-stars Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey as Lt. Colonel William Travis. Other actors include Frankie Avalon, Patrick Wayne (John Wayne’s son), and Richard Boone as Sam Houston. 15 years before its release, John Wayne had decided to make a movie about the Battle of the Alamo and spent a lot of time researching and preparing the script with scriptwriter James Edward Grant. However, the original script was lost to Republic Pictures during an argument over the film’s budget. A few years later Republic Pictures worked on the script and turned it into the movie, The Last Command. Wayne decided to find another way to release the movie. The Alamo won the Academy Award for Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Music (Scoring), and Best Music (Song). John Wayne won the award for Best Picture and was nominated for an Oscar. The movie was selected by the National Board of Review and it won a Bronze Wrangler as the best theatrical motion picture of the year from the Western Heritage Awards. Despite Wayne’s financial problems due to the production costs of the film, it grossed highly in the box office, allowing Wayne to sell the rights back to the releaser United Artists. Numerous references have been made to the film and it has been highly influential for the making of many other films that have been made.