Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Humbersi
The first must-see film of the year.
tomgillespie2002
While the eye-catching poster promises "Iron Hooked Fury!" and pitting a harpoon against a six-gun, the curiously forgotten B-movie western Terror in a Texas Town, directed by Joseph H. Lewis, is a positively downbeat little movie. Starting with a handsome, square- jawed hero walking into battle with a clad-in-black gunslinger, it appears at first glance that we are on familiar ground. But the film then flashes back, and all the western tropes we had been expecting are subtly subverted, similar in many ways to Nicholas Ray's groundbreaking masterpiece Johnny Guitar four years previous. The screenwriter is credited as Ben Perry - a name you'll likely be unfamiliar with. Yet this was in fact a front for Dalton Trumbo, the great Oscar-winning writer who was then under scrutiny from Senator McCarthy and blacklisted from Hollywood. With this knowledge, the oddness of Terror in a Texas Town suddenly makes sense.In the - you guessed it - small Texas town of Prairie City, the hard-working farmers earning little from their land are struggling to fight off the advances of the unscrupulous land baron McNeil (Sebastian Cabot), who is using his wealth and influence to buy up the whole area for reasons not immediately clear. Some of the townsfolk are playing hard-ball, refusing to give their homes and livelihood to a man they never see. So McNeil brings in tough-as- nails gunslinger Johnny Crale (an outstanding Nedrick Young), a broken career-criminal who is happy to caress his pistol whenever a deal doesn't go his way. He murders Swede Sven Hansen (Ted Stanhope) when he refuses to sign a contract. A day later, his sailor son George (Sterling Hayden) arrives to greet the father he hasn't seen in over a decade, only the learn of his murder and that the land left to him is now the property of a greedy businessman.It quickly becomes clear that the hero-versus-villain showdown the opening scene promised us will be nothing like we expected. The dashing American hero is in fact an immigrant without the skills of a quick-draw or the wits to take on McNeil on his own, and the black leather-donning Crale may just be in the midst of developing a conscience after years of killing and the loss of his gun hand. What makes Terror in a Texas Town so interesting is the way it merely hints at the two central characters' personalities and past, leaving these could-be archetypes as intriguing enigmas. Trumbo makes a point of highlighting the ranchers' ignorance of McNeil's Machiavellian role in the events, choosing instead to focus their hatred on the muscle. It isn't difficult to imagine that Trumbo's exile and unforgivable treatment at the hands of his own country didn't influence this apparently off-the-conveyor-belt B-picture. It has been unfairly forgotten by the decades, but Terror in a Texas Town is ripe for re-discovery as one of the strangest and most compelling westerns American has ever produced.
rsternesq
I do not believe I watched the whole thing. I tried. I really, really tried. I tried to like something of it but let's face it. This isn't Gary Cooper and this isn't High Noon and no one is going to Yuma. What a politicized mess. tell me something I don't already know. Bad guys are bad and good guys are good and bad girls are good too. Glad we got that straight. Now let's get on to the trashing of normal everyday folks to Dalton can be happy in his red diaper. Feel better now? Good. I think this one belongs back in the drawer. Back of the drawer. If you want to watch a western, there are many better ones readily available. This one is not worth the time. Sterling is better served in his other ventures and so are the others in the cast. Even if you only have one station and this is the only thing on, read a book. Rent Sparticus. Don't bother with this waste of film and effort all around.
FightingWesterner
When oil is discovered on the properties of peaceful homesteaders, fat-cat Sebastian Cabot sends his one-handed gunman to terrorize them into leaving. When stubborn Swedish whaler Sterling Hayden's father is killed by them, he takes on the bad guys with only a harpoon and the truth!The premise is a bit familiar but the story is artfully told with great acting by all involved. Hayden plays an offbeat, interesting, and unconventional western hero and Cabot is a wonderfully sleazy villain. However, Academy Award winning screenwriter Nedrick Young gives the film's best performance as Cabot's vile hired killer.Entertaining from start to finish, this is a really compelling low-budget movie that really knows what buttons to push, especially as Hayden tries to get his neighbors to break their fearful code of silence.The final showdown, glimpsed in the opening scene, is both memorable and exciting
mrush
This is a pretty standard run of the mill western...good guy versus bad guy.It had way too many clichés to be considered a good film but it is watchable if not too much else is on at the time.The film is sort of mis-titled,I didn't see too much 'terror' ,just a whole lot of standard oater stuff.Sterling Hayden is quite good has a Swedish man who comes to America to a small town in Texas after his father is killed there.Hayden comes to the USA to inherit his fathers' land but finds out that the local mean big wig is buying up all the land and he has the local sheriff on his side to convince people they should pack up and move.The big meanie,played by Sebastion Cabot,also has a gunslinger,dressed in all black and black must be terribly hot in summertime in Texas, that helps convince the locals to give up their land to Mr.French.Of course Cabot ain't playing Mr.French in this movie ,but to this kid who grew up in the 1960's watching "Family Affair" he will always be Mr.French. Anyway the big Swede don't take too kindly to anyone pushing him around and he soon runs afoul of the local bad guys who want his land.The movie isn't too bad nor too good.It just sort of plods it's way along to the predictable conclusion although I will give it points for being at least a little bit original in the final showdown.You'll see a few familiar faces besides Hayden and Cabot...some of those faces you'll remember from TV shows like "The Andy Griffin Show" and "Green Acres".This movie was OK .I gave it a 5.But honestly if I catch it on AMC again I'd probably flip on by it.It's good enough to see once but not nearly good enough to sit through twice.
