Terror in a Texas Town (1958)

***SPOILERS***The "Sterling" actor Sterling Hayden who was promoted by his studio Paramount back in 1941 as being the most handsomest man in Hollywood is whaler George Hansen who's now back home in Prairie City Texas from the high seas after a 19 year absence in the Pacific. Only for him to find out that his dad the old salts Sven Hansen,Ted Stanhope, has been brutally gunned down the day or, give or take a day, before! Hayden/Hansen sporting a weird and almost laughable Swedish accent now decides to find his father's killer and bring him to justice. It later turns out that the elder Mr. Hansen refused to vacate his farm to the greedy and land grabbing McNeil, Sabastian Cabot, who in return had his top henchman the all dressed in black and one handed "Lefty" Johnny Crale, Ned Young, gun him down. It's not just old man Hansen's property that McNeil want's but the entire towns that he found out is swimming in "Blacak Gold" or oil. And being the all for me and screw you individual that McNeil is he not only want's a piece of the action but the entire caboodle as well!Peacful and law abiding at first Hansen in getting no cooperation from the intimidated towns people that McNeil and his goons are targeting then decides to take them on single handedly all by himself. It's not an easy task for the peace loving Hansen who ends up getting worked over and run out of town on a rail by McNeil's goons only to come back for more, beatings and abuse, of the same. It's when McNeil overplayed his hand when he has the non violent and never making trouble for anyone, even for McNeil, farmer Jose Mirada, Victor Millan, gunned down by "Lefty" Crale. That was to keep him from telling the local sheriff Stoner, Victor McVey, that it was Crale under orders from McNeil who murdered Old Man Hansen. Instead of feeling he's now off the hook, in the Seven Hansen murder, Crale gets religious and turns on his boss McNeil by shooting him for ordering him to gun Jose down as well as keeping his mouth shut about it.***SPOILERS***It's now high noon time at Prairie City with Hansen fully recovered from his injuries faces the gun slinging Crale, who murdered his dad, in the town square to not only see who's the fastest gun, or in the case of Hansen harpoon thrower, in town. Made just after the height of the "Red Scare" or "Communist Witch Hunt" era in the US the film starred two actors, Hayden & Young, who were victims of the dreaded "Communist Blacklist" as well as the man Dalton Trumbo, using an assumed name of course , who directed it.

The common man, in this respect a Whaler from Sweden, versus slick and soulless Capitalists. The greedy, rich Men representing the System can purchase fancy attire, and expensive and flashy weapons of destruction. But our lower class type of an immigrant sod buster dresses in plain clothes and is forced to use the tools of his trade to defend his honor and exact revenge.There are no subtle representations here and it is all framed like Artful arrogance and what this stylish B-Western presented is nothing less than one of the most unique and classy Proletariat Pictures from a decade that was full of mediocre meanderings from others by the wagon load.This Norish Western was the last for an unsung B-Movie Master Joseph H. Lewis and his underrated work was missed but not forgotten among Film Historians and Movie Lovers. This is not as good as The Big Combo (1955) or Gun Crazy (1950), but very few Films are. He was great at entertaining and messaging with a flat out frenzy of style and pomp that made His Movies, and this one is certainly no exception, quite different and much better than most.

Good original western revolving around a murder and the unstoppable justice that follows in the shape of a determined Swedish immigrant. my oh my there was some lousy acting to behold here, with the exception of Hayden, Cabot and..... let's just call that last one "the bad guy"(Bogart lookalike). I must say i find the whale spear vs. a revolver kind of amusing, but actually quite plausible if you can believe it. The story ain't much but it aims to please. It is always satisfying to see the average Joe stand up against tyranny and evil s.o.b's. So by all means watch it if you enjoy old school western's that stand out a little from the rest.

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.