Terror in a Texas Town (1958)

Terror in a Texas Town
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Written by Dalton Trumbo (fronted by Ben Perry)
1958/USA
Seltzer Films
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] [explaining how he got the nickname “Wagon Wheel Joe”] I carried a box filled with different wagon wheels. Whenever I’d come to a scene which was just disgraceful in dialogue and all, I’d place a wagon wheel in one portion of the frame, and make an artistic shot out of it, so by the time the scene was over you only saw the artistic value and couldn’t analyze what the scene was about. — Joseph H. Lewis[/box]

Here is your only opportunity to see Sterling Hayden with a Swedish accent and a shootout involving a harpoon vs. a sixgun.  I thought it was a ton of campy, pulpy fun.

Ed McNeil (Sebastian Cabot) is a fat, greedy city slicker with a big appetite for the local land.  He claims he owns all of it via a land grant and that the honest farmers of the place are squatters.  Nonetheless, he tries to buy the settlers out.  If that doesn’t work, he turns to his trusty hit man, Johnny Crale.  A few settlers try to unite to stand up against McNeil but fear holds them back.

Enter George Hansen (Hayden).  He has returned from his last whaling voyage to join his father on the farm they have jointly bought only to find his father has been shot down.  He gets little cooperation from the sheriff or anyone else until a humble Mexican reveals the possible reason behind McNeil’s lust for the land.

This movie is a hoot!  The dialogue is supremely clunky but that only suits the ridiculous story.  Watching the stone-faced Hayden sporadically attempt a Swedish accent only adds to the fun.  I’m surprised this is not a cult classic.

This was Lewis’s last feature film.  He continued to direct in television.

Montage of clips