This big budget Western deals with cattle baron Deveraux (Clark Gable) who his assigned by Andrew Jackson (Lionel Barrymore) to convince Sam Houston for union Texas to United States . A fiery newspaper editor (Ava Gardner) is the woman between Deveraux and the bad guy , Craden (Broderick Crawford) . Deveraux must fight state senators (Crawford , Ed Begley , Russell Simpson) for union to United States.This exciting picture about Texas fights for independence contains Western action , drama , historical happenings , a love story and results to be quite entertaining . Based on a screenplay by Borden chase , a Western expert . Gorgeous Ava Gardner as an intrepid journalist as well as Clark Gable's love interest . Film debut for George Hamilton and secondary acting by William Conrad and Ed Begley . The motion picture was well directed by Vincent Sherman . Also available in horrible computer colorized version . It's partially based on historical deeds about Texas independence, these are the followings : With Mexican permission Stephen Austin brought the first Anglo-American colonists to Texas, the first of many, their numbers grew and they wanted self-government and this desire led to the revolt of 1835, the Texas war for Independence. General Santa Anna, stormed the Alamo, and wiped out the garrison on 6 March 1836. But on 21 April 1836 General Santa Anna suffered a crushing defeat by Sam Houston and was taken prisoner. Texas was declared a Republic in October 1836 and Houston became its first president. In 1845 Texas joined the US, this lead to war with Mexico and disastrous results for that country. Samuel Houston(1793-1863)well performed by Moroni Olsen, was a frontiersman and politician , he went to live with the Cherokees and took a Cherokee wife. After the fall of the Alamo, he managed to keep together a small force and launched a furious surprise attack on the Mexican army of 1300 camped on the western bank of the San Jacinto River. With Texas free and independent republic, Houston was elected the first president. When Texas was admitted to the United States in 1845, Houston was a senator to Washington.

Greatly enjoyed this film which is not a documentary film on the history of Texas, but a very enjoyable film with great actors like Clark Gable. Clark Gable plays (Devereaux Burke),"Mogambo",'53, who wants Texas to become part of the Union and met with Lionel Barrymore,(Andrew Jackson),"Key Largo",'48, in Washington, and decided to find a very powerful Texan, named Thomas Craden,(Broderick Crawford),"Hightway Patrol",'55 TV Series, who was against Texas from joining the Union and wanted it to remain a LONE STAR STATE. Ava Gardner, (Martha Ronda),"The Snows of Kilimanjaro,",52, who was a very strong willed woman who ran a newspaper and was also a so called girl friend of Thomas Craden which caused great problems between Burke. This is a Hollywood story that is meant to entertain and the veteran actors in this film have created this film into a great black and white Classic.

After reading some not so great reviews about this film and having seen once a colorized and dubbed version on Brazilian TV, which I found very confusing, I had a good surprise when I saw the original version on VHS. This is an unusual western which describes very well the conflicting feelings in Texas before it became a state. The leaders that want Texas as an independent country are hanging on to the words of Sam Houston, which is far away making peace between the Apaches. Clark Gable goes there to hear from Houston his real opinion. Ava Gardner is against joining the Union, and so is Broderick Crawford. Crawford is fanatic about his beliefs. In spite of showing a political story, there is plenty of action, making the film quite enjoyable. Ava is at her best, she even sings. Also the black and white photography is quite good.

I afraid even with the starpower involved in this one since there's not much they can do with a poor script.Convoluted plot about the annexation of Texas into the union, it involves the opposing forces of Gable and Broderick Crawford in a fight to see whether Texas will become a state, or an independent republic.Although there's plenty of action, too much of the film gets bogged down in the romance between Gable and Gardner. I guess MGM needed another vehicle for the two of them after THE HUCKSTERS (1947) or MOGAMBO (1953) And the battle scene and what happens to Crawford at the end is unreal. It turns into a 'Let's all unite for Texas' kinda of a thing that looks implausible, especially after what's been going on for the previous 94 minutes.If they had a better script it might have turned out to be something more entertaining. 4 out of 10