Although Ford's Stagecoach is rightly regarded as re-vitalizing the Western in 1939, it can't take sole credit.... The threatened (and almost certain) war in Europe gave Hollywood the opportunity to use the big-scale Western to draw on national pride, call for national unity, draw parallels between oppressed minorities in Europe and those in America's history, and to present the United States as a kind of international peace-maker. Man of Conquest is one of the most interesting (and one of the most forgotten) of these 1939/40 epics, and a credit to a small company like Republic, whose first really big movie it was.... Sam Houston is one of the most interesting of the Western empire-builders, and it is surprising that this is still the only really big film made from his life. It telescopes a great deal of time, and whitewashes what could be considered a major unleashing of American colonialism in the great Texas land-grab, but on the whole is honest and surprisingly strong in the stand it takes for the exploited American Indian.” William K. Everson