Rent Terror in a Texas Town (1958)

Cult Western. - Terror in a Texas Town review by Steve

Brief, bullet paced B western full of offbeat narrative details: like the gunfighter's steel prosthetic right hand and the hero's duelling weapon of choice, the harpoon. And it's a vehicle for the director's audacious flourishes. The ultra-stark black and white photography allied to a percussive mariachi score, gives it a unique ambience.

Sterling Hayden plays a Swedish immigrant sailor who returns home to discover a rich landowner (Sebastian Cabot) has hired a gunman (Ned Young) to murder the farmers who have leased his territory, now he has discovered it is sitting on a sea of oil. The killer shot down the sailor's father. So it's a revenge western.

It was scripted by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo under a front, and this is ostentatiously about the failure of people to stand up to an oppressor. It is also a warning of the dangers of US capitalism. The terrified farmers wonder why one man should want everything. Hayden was another victim of McCarthy. He is terrific in this.

And it's an exciting work of genre fiction. There is phenomenal suspense for such archetypal situations. And the characters are vivid and moving. We really care about these persecuted farmers. This was Joe Lewis' last release before he went on to tv, but he was clearly still at his peak; and one of the great low budget directors.