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Terror in a Texas Town
Hard as Nails / Sturm über Texas
USA 1958
produced by Frank N. Seltzer for Seltzer Films
directed by Joseph H. Lewis
starring Sterling Hayden, Sebastian Cabot, Carol Kelly, Eugene Mazzola, Nedrick Young, Victor Millan, Frank Ferguson, Marilee Earle, Ted Stanhope, Tyler McVey, Byron Foulger, Fred Kohler jr, Gil Lamb, Steve Mitchell, Hank Patterson, James H. Russell, Ann Varela, Sheb Wooley, Glenn Strange
screenplay by Ben Perry, fronting for Dalton Trumbo, music by Gerald Fried
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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The Old but not too Old West: Swede George Hansen (Serling Hayden)
enters a small Texas town to visit his father (Ted Stanhope) he hasn't
seen in decades ... and finds out he has been killed. Unbeknownst to him,
the very man who tells him, Crale (Nedrick Young), is the very man who has
shot his dad dead, a gun for hire, who gets a bit too old for his job and
out of touch with the "modern days" where the gun is no longer
the only law of the land. And since he has lost his right hand, he also
shows nerves. His girlfriend Molly (Carol Kelly) urges him to skip town,
but with Hansen on the scene, he thinks he might get a few Dollars more
out of his employer McNeil (Sebastian Cabot). McNeil is a rich businessman
of the "honest citizen" variety, who tries to get his hands on
all the local farmers' land in a "lawful" way - meaning he's
first trying to buy it from them under value, and if that doesn't work
buying sheriffs, judges and whatever to drive them off. And since even
that didn't work anymore, he had Hansen's dad killed as a deterrent. And
why is that? Because oil has been found on the land, but nobody knows
about it yet ... Now that Hansen's here, he first thinks he's a minor
distraction, and wants Crale just to force him onto the next train out of
town ... but Hansen's stubborn, and while he seems to be a bit of a
meathead who can easily be duped, he actually gets the whole story pretty
quickly and understands the connections - and tries to get the locals to
stand up against McNeil and confederates with him. But he knows,
ultimately it will be only him with his whale harpoon to set a few wrongs
right ... Now of course, watching Terror in a Texas Town, it's
hard not to catch at least the occasional resemblance to the more popular High
Noon from 6 years prior - but that's not to say beyond that Terror in
a Texas Town can't stand on his own feet, as quite the contrary is
true: It's a film noir-ish take on the western genre that really
concentrates on characters and situations much more than on western
mainstays, and even though the story features nothing that hasn't been
told in a western before, it does so extremely well and in a unique way
that does away with many western clichés (heck, the hero doesn't even
have a gun or ride a horse) and brings a depth to story as well as
characters (including the on first look stereotypical baddies) not usually
found in the genre. And director Josep H. Lewis finds just the right
pictures to give the film's narrative the necessary feel. Totally
recommended, and not only for fans of the western genre!
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