THE FIRST TEXAN posits 82 boring minutes of nonsense about Sam Houston (Joel McCrea) and the Texan Revolution of 1835-36. One historical mistake after another, and the greater sin: no fun. The earlier Sam Houston biopic, 1939s Man Of Conquest, with Richard Dix, is at least zesty, whereas this 1956 slog takes the drama out of the desperate contest waged for the northernmost province of Old Mexico, and dulls the can’t-lose personalities of Houston, Bowie, Travis, Crockett, Santa Anna and “Andy ‘by-God’ Jackson“. Written by Daniel B. Ullman (Seven Angry Men), directed at a crawl by Byron Haskin, who had done much better with Treasure Island, His Majesty O’Keefe, The Naked Jungle and The War Of The Worlds.

In the soup are Felicia Farr, Jeff Morrow (as Jim Bowie), Wallace Ford, Abraham Sofaer, Jody McCrea, William Hopper (as William Barret Travis), Rodolfo Hoyos (as Col. Martin Perfecto de Cos), Roy Roberts, James Griffith (as Davy Crockett), Frank Puglia, Carl Benton Reid (as Andrew Jackson), Chubby Johnson (as Deaf Smith), Dabbs Greer, Myron Healey, Frank McGrath, Nestor Paiva and William Phipps.

If you want error-riddled movies on the courageous frontier folks and their momentous events, stick with The Last Command and The Alamo: you may not get educated but at least you’ll get some big bangs for your bucks. This one did gross $2,900,000.