Terror in a Texas Town

Dir: Joseph H. Lewis

1958

****

Joseph H. Lewis's Terror in a Texas Town is one of the most beautifully written westerns of all time. The first scene (which is also the last scene) is incredible in how it is shot, the dialogue and by the fact that unlike most showdowns, where our hero faces the story's villain face to face on the main street (usually just outside the saloon) for a shoot-out, our hero is armed with a whaling harpoon instead of a Smith and Wesson.  The great Sterling Hayden is the film's hero, a Swedish whaler who has come to settle at his father's farm after being at sea for the last twelve years or so. When he arrives just three days after his father was found murdered, George Hansen asks around the village to find out who the killer is and why the surrounding land is being bought up by one man. Nedrick Young is awesome as Johnny Crale, the gunfighter hired by Sebastian Cabot, a greedy landowner, who wants to chase the farmers off the land so he can have it for his own gain. Johnny Crale isn't your typical two-dimensional villain either, he's tired but relentless, unflinching but with a quiet death-wish, wanting to leave the life he is leading but also revelling in the fear he inflicts on others. As Hansen gets closer to the truth, the pair get set to lock horns in one of the most original and compelling finales to a western I've ever enjoyed. There is something rather sophisticated about Terror in a Texas Town, especially given its title. The writer was credited as being Ben Perry but later it was found to be the work of none other than Dalton Trumbo, the infamous genius who was blacklisted during McCarthy's Red Scare. Nedrick Young was also blacklisted at the time but he got hold of the script and gave it to director Joseph H. Lewis who was a good friend of his. Lewis was apprehensive at first but he had long decided that this would be his last film, so went along with it, feeling he had nothing to lose. Sterling Hayden also had links to the Communist party, and famously 'named names' during questioning by the House of Un-American Activities Committee to much regret - although it has been noted that he purposefully didn't give them names he knew they didn't already have. You can tell that the films he chose to be part of afterwards were in retaliation, all having undercurrents of socialism and anti-establishment/conservative/capitalist themes. It's an age old story, especially within the western genre, but it is so simple and perfectly written, it feels boldly unique and unmatched. Traditional and alternative at the same time and absolutely brilliant.