B-movie auteur Joseph H.
Lewis, regular director of classy westerns and film noirs best known Gun Crazy which predated Bonnie and Clyde for almost ten years,
was about to retire from the industry after a steady career of having directed
some forty films when his friend and frequent collaborator, actor Nedrick
Young, presented him with the script for Terror
in a Texas Town. Originally penned
by blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Exodus;
Spartacus) with credit going to
Trumbo’s pseudonym Ben Perry, the also blacklisted actor saw with the American
Western yarn a chance to get back into the film business while also reworking
the tropes presented in films like High
Noon and Shane. As this was slated to be Lewis’ final
directing job, the director eagerly accepted the job unfazed by the Red Scare
sweeping Hollywood.
A simple and brisk yet
compelling tale told almost entirely in flashback, Terror in a Texas Town involves a corrupt hotel owner McNeil
(Sebastian Cabot) eager to seize the oil underneath the Prairie City land who
hires gunman Johnny Crale (Nedrick Young) to drive the farmers out. When the efforts claim the life of a former
Swedish whaler, the tracks are laid for vengeance upon the arrival of the
whaler’s son George Hansen (Sterling Hayden) who quickly learns of the
murderous scheming before arming himself with only his father’s harpoon.
Running at a taut eighty-one
minutes, not a moment is wasted depicting the gradual buildup towards the
bloody duel depicted on the film’s poster and opening shot. Where most westerns tend towards the epic
length with black and white divisions of good vs. evil, this one gets down to
business immediately and presents the viewer with characters trapped in an
oddly relatable gray area even as we’re appalled by their actions. Moreover, there’s a loose theme being rolled
out concerning how characters trapped on opposite sides of the fence may have
more in common than they realize.
As with High Noon minus the recurring theme song, it’s an engaging yarn
concerning the lone hero surrounded by evildoers in the old West. What separates it from the pack are the moral
complexities of the supporting characters.
While Sterling Hayden is always great in anything he’s in, Terror in a Texas Town really belongs to
the villains who are each imbued with detailed sensibilities which evoke a
degree of sympathy in spite of their illicit actions.
Take for instance Johnny Crale and his
mistress Molly (Carol Kelly) who aren’t illustrated as purely reprehensible
crooks but in a way as survivors just trying to get by. Some of the film’s best scenes are driven
purely by conversations of one-up gamesmanship, particularly when Crale is
first assigned the task of forcing the farmers out by McNeil. Crale carries himself with distant cool with
a palpable danger about him while the oversized McNeil can’t help but mock him
at every turn as he enlists his services.
We also get ample room for themes concerning submitting to oppressive
forces and eventually finding the courage to stand up to oppression even as it’s
holding a gun to our head.
Visually the film looks
splendid thanks to location photography by Russell Harlan (To Kill a Mockingbird; Rio Bravo) with wide shots of plains and
fields covering the oil and the dusty soils kicked up throughout the corrupt
town with most everyone remaining indoors.
Watching the film my mind kept coming back to There Will Be Blood and I have to believe Paul Thomas Anderson
watched Terror in a Texas Town many
times as it seems to share locations.
The only aspect which seems
to work against the film is the soundtrack by Gerald Fried which like the
recurring theme song for High Noon
tends to disengage viewers from the film.
That said, what’s here is a solid western with strong performances a
unique flavor thanks to Dalton Trumbo’s screenplay and the now revered Lewis’
direction. What could have been just
another Western quickie, in the pantheon of film history, is now regarded as
one of the very best incarnations the genre has to offer!
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki