Terror in a Texas Town **** (1958, Sterling Hayden, Sebastian Cabot, Carol Kelly) – Classic Movie Review 5983

Director Joseph H Lewis’s 1958 cult Western is tense, moody and unusual, with an effective Gothic climax in which Sterling Hayden’s star character George Hansen faces the six-gun-toting bad guy with a whaling harpoon.

The portly Sebastian Cabot gives a rousing study in villainy as McNeil, the nasty patriarch who controls the town, including timid lawman Sheriff Stoner (Tyler McVey), and is trying to scare the local farmers off the land to drill oil. Ned [Nedrick] Young is an even more disturbing villain as Crale, Cabot’s gunman who mows down Swedish farmer Sven Hansen (Ted Stanhope), prompting the latter’s son George (Hayden) to stir the good citizens to resist.

With an assured star turn by Swedish-accented Hayden and controlled direction by major cult name Lewis, the film is smartly photographed in black and white by Ray Rennahan, and comes complete with a stirring score from Gerald Fried.

There is a lot of talk and there are pauses and detours for character development in Ben L Perry’s intelligent, thoughtful screenplay, so there is little in the way of thrills for action fans until the climax. But the movie is short (at 80 minutes), sharp and way above average for a low-budget ($80,000) support or co-feature.

The screenplay was credited to Ben L Perry, which was a front for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo.

Also in the cast are Carol Kelly, Eugene Martin [Eugene Mazzola], Victor Millan, Sheb Wooley, Ann Varela, Fred Kohler Jr, Steve Mitchell, Marilee Earle, Jamie Russell, Glenn Strange, Jeffrey Sayre, Hank Patterson and Frank Ferguson.

It is designed by William Ferrari, produced by Frank N Seltzer and released by United Artists.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5983

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