The Road to Fort Alamo (Italian: La strada per Fort Alamo) is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Mario Bava.
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The Road to Fort Alamo | |
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Directed by | Mario Bava |
Screenplay by |
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Story by | Enzo Gicca Palli[2] |
Produced by | Achille Piazzi[1] |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Ubaldo Terzano[1] |
Edited by | Mario Serandrei[1] |
Music by | Piero Umiliani[1] |
Color process | Eastmancolor |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Belotti Film[1] |
Release dates |
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Countries |
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Box office | £173.865 million (Italy)[4] |
The Road to Fort Alamo was produced before the genre of the Spaghetti Western had established itself with A Fistful of Dollars.[5] European Westerns had become popular when Germany's Rialto Film bought the rights to Karl May's Western novels, and made several films with director Harald Reinl with his Winnetou 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 producing 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 as resembling the Winnetou films, as opposed to the style Leone developed with A Fistful of Dollars.[6] The Road to Fort Alamo was filmed at Elios Film Studios in Rome and on location between February and March 1964.[1] Michel Lemoine, who had a supporting role in the film, spoke about his work on it with Bava, 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".[7][8]
Franco Prosperi, who served as one of the film's script writers and Bava's assistant director, expressed 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."[9]
The Road to Fort Alamo was distributed by Comptoir Français du Film in France on March 24, 1965.[1][3] In that country, it was retitled Arizona Bill in the tradition of the twenty Arizona Bill films made in France between 1907 and 1913, starring Joe Hamman.[1] In the United States, it was released by World Entertainment Corporation on July 10, 1966.[1]