Viva — Max

The answer, according to the film’s box office receipts: audiences would rather watch Neil Armstrong take one small step than watch Peter Ustinov take one very silly one.

But more than 50 years later, Viva Max! — a film that is equal parts Dr. Strangelove and The Three Stooges — deserves a second look. Not just as a historical curio, but as a eerily prescient satire about performative patriotism, media circuses, and the absurdity of borders. General Maximilian Rodrigues de Santos (Ustinov), a proud but perpetually overlooked officer in the Mexican army, is tired of being ignored by his girlfriend and his superiors. To win back his honor, he hatches a ludicrous plan: he will retake the Alamo. Not the 1836 Alamo, but the modern-day tourist trap in San Antonio, Texas. Viva Max

With a ragtag platoon of teenage cadets and a horse named after a Spanish poet, Max crosses the Rio Grande. He finds the Alamo defended by exactly one sleepy security guard. Within an hour, the Mexicans have "reclaimed" the shrine, run up the Mexican flag, and confused the hell out of a group of schoolchildren. The answer, according to the film’s box office