AllMovie

The oft-told story of Sam Houston's emergence as the "father" of Texas was given an expensive and expansive treatment in the Raoul Walsh production The Conqueror. William Farnum, Fox's Number One male screen attraction, was well cast as General Houston, as was Jewel Carmen as the hero's sweetheart Eliza Allen, "the fairest rose of Tennessee." The film traces Houston's rise from obscurity to the governor's chair of Tennessee, his refusal to wage war against his Cherokee Indian friends, and his "exile" to Texas, where he single-handedly carves out a veritable kingdom, with himself as the reigning monarch. According to the film, Houston accomplished all this for the sake of Eliza, feeling unworthy of her love until he had sufficiently proven himself. Later filmed accounts of Houston's life and times were not quite as romantically motivated -- nor were those later productions as thrillingly assembled as The Conqueror.