Somewhere in the Crum family archives is a snapshot of nine year-old me decked out in the imitation coonskin hat and fake-leather-with-fringe shirt and pants I had just received for Christmas 1956. I am holding my plastic Ol' Betsy rifle loaded with a fresh roll of Sure-Fire caps. Now I was truly Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.

So imagine what screening the latest version of "The Alamo" meant to me. Even without the definitive Fess Parker as Davy, just seeing the backwoodsman portrayed once again is a hoot and holler. In this latest take, however, Billy Bob Thornton plays more the man than the legend Parker, John Wayne, and others have portrayed. That includes the early 19th Century pulp novels and stage plays that created and perpetuated the Crockett legend.

Now writer-director John Lee Hancock ("The Rookie") and co-scribes Leslie Bohem and Stephen Gaghan accentuate the "true" Alamo story, including makeovers of Sam Houston, William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Crockett. So be it. Maybe at last my nagging Crockett fixation will subside. Then again, it so happens the reason for watching this new Alamo take is Billy Bob's Davy. This time around, Crockett wears no coonskin hat...for the most part. He briefly pulls one on to mock the ham actor he recently seen playing him. And he prefers to be called David.

The film clarifies that Crockett's mythic notoriety is something he used for both political and financial gain. When he is wildly applauded while in the audience of a theatrical presentation of his so-called life, it is clear Crockett's ego is in overdrive. By this time of his life he expected such public attention. He has become his own best actor.

Hancock's film uses Crockett particularly, since he is the most enduring legend of the Alamo's officers, to thread the story line. This is logical choice. Once Crockett is enticed by Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) during the Spring of 1836 to join the land rush to Mexican (later Texas) territory with a guarantee of mucho free acreage, he saddles up gladly. Unfortunately for him, he arrives at the Alamo just before the 2,400 strong Mexican Army arrives and eventually obliterates the 189 "Texians."

Among the casualties are commanding officers Jim Bowie (Jason Patric) designer of the famous hunting knife, William Travis (Patrick Wilson), and Crockett. The battle lasts 13 days. The movie makes the point that when Crockett first arrives he is stunned that the rumored battle had not already occurred.

"The Alamo" is a sumptuously photographed (by Dean Semler) telling that has a built-in problem: most of us already know how it will end. At least we know who won the battle. In this version Crockett is the last seen alive, and under unique circumstances--unlike previous movie versions. His final appearance before the Mexican General Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarria), which I will not spoil with specifics, is supposedly based on actual eye witness accounts. Incidentally, outside of Thornton's layered portrayal, it is Echevarria's elegantly sadistic Santa Anna who impresses.

But is this "Alamo" the definitive version? No, this is no History Channel presentation. The Americans are still the heroes, fighting for land that happened to be owned by another country. Is it surprising that when "The Alamo" premiered in Mexico City last weekend audiences were mortified? The film shows a number in Santa Anna's militia awed by the fact that Davy Crockett was defending the Alamo. Crockett is shown shooting a shoulder tassel off Santa Anna's uniform before the battle actually begins. And Crockett plays his fiddle (?) in the midst of battle, defying the enemy Mexicans.

Where does the movie even suggest that the Mexicans were justly defending their property? Instead we get Quaid's Houston screaming "remember the Alamo" as his army lays into Santa Anna's forces following the Alamo's fall. The Mexico City audience undoubtedly cringed when the tag line appears on the screen noting Sam Houston creamed the Mexican army "in 18 minutes."

The bonafide truth about the Alamo surely exists between what has been published by both American and Mexican historians. Hancock's "The Alamo," however, is still heaped with legend.