newly streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>) flouts nearly every one of these directives in a giant, dusty middle finger to the moral arbiters of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe plot is indicative of the postwar evolution of the gunslinger picture; what was once either white-hatted cowboys singing about their horses or double-fisted shoot \u2018em ups grew up to display more tonal range. Texas Town<\/em> begins with what many now lament as the \u201cTarantino open\u201d: a taste of the climax, to be circled back upon later. George Hansen (Sterling Hayden) marches into a town square armed with what the film\u2019s poster calls, \u201cIron-hooked Fury!\u201d With only a meathook and true grit, the hero stands tall opposite the then-faceless man in black, who would later be introduced as Johnny Crale (Ned Young). It\u2019s a Thrilla in Manila– or Prairie City, where the story is set.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWealthy landowner McNeil (Sebastian Cabot, whom genre fans will recognize as Pip, the genial liaison to the underworld in the Twilight Zone<\/em> episode \u201cA Nice Place to Visit\u201d) has his lobster butter-drenched fingers all over Prairie City, and he\u2019s looking to get a bigger piece of the pie. He enlists the services of Johnny Crale to run ranchers off of their land, after which he swoops in and reaps the benefits. Swedish rancher Sven Hansen (Ted Stanhope) is the next target on the list. He tells his neighbor Jose (Victor Millan), \u201cA man will talk more when he\u2019s alone with another man than when he\u2019s with two. Stay in the shed and listen.\u201d Jose watches as Crale attempts to get Hansen to sign over his oil-rich land; when Hansen tells him to kick rocks and lifts his whale harpoon to underline the statement, Crale lights him up like a Scandanavian Christmas tree. Mirada vows revenge. Enter Sterling \u201ctha God\u201d Hayden as George Hansen, the son of the slain elder.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHayden is often celebrated (deservedly) for his roles in two Kubrick films: Dr. Strangelove<\/em> or The Killing<\/em>, whichever intensity tickles your fancy. But in Texas Town<\/em>, the actor adapts an aw-shucks newcomer naivete that transforms into an everyman salt by the time the end credits roll. With a paper-thin Swedish accent that comes and goes throughout the crisp 81-minute runtime, Hansen Jr.\u2019s lines are delivered with the matter-of-fact confusion of a man who stands bewildered at the contradictions of of North American capitalist society, and all that is done to protect national wealth above all else. \u201cHow can I get in trouble claiming what is mine?\u201d he wonders aloud. The answer, he finds, is maddening to anyone not in the old boys club. <\/p>\n\n\n\nOpposite Hayden, Ned Young is a fantastic heavy. Clad in the kind of black-on-black threads that Johnny Cash croons about, Johnny Crale has that Caleb DeCotaeu vibe that Leo DiCaprio\u2019s Rick Dalton plays with such zeal in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood<\/em> (sans the Zapata mustache). McNeill describes Johnny as \u201cdeath walking around in the shape of a man.\u201d Every word is spoken through a grunt or a grin, growing his average stature to a more insidious one until it builds to a \u201cWarriors, come out to play\u201d come-hither that catapults the character to top-tier Western baddie status.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe law is an active antagonist in the film, white and xenophobic. Hansen has a letter from his father bequeathing the home to him; the Sheriff claims it won\u2019t hold up in court. Hansen says that there\u2019s a will in Austin saying the same– the Sheriff again dismisses it. \u201cNo foreigner is going to come in here and tell me how to run my job, you understand?\u201d Hansen knows when to pump the brakes, but parts with a warning, \u201cI understand justice too, and I think I\u2019ll get it.\u201d Turns out, law dog is heeled at the feet of Fancy Pants McNeill. The old maxim, that cops serve and protect capital and not people, remains evergreen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the aesthetics of the film are effectively minimalist, that stunning simplicity extends to the thematic attitude as well. Joseph H. Lewis crafts a world in which the riches of the land (literally, oil) would be bequeathed to the common clay of civilization, were it not for the voracious greed and cruelty of the top one percent and their minions. In a bit of serendipity for the miniscule budget and limited location, the good men and women of the realm are isolated physically and emotionally within the frame. Asked why she sticks around good-for-nothing Crale, his girlfriend Molly (Carol Kelly) replies \u201cI stay with him because of what I am. I stay with him because no other man would have me. I stay with him because as low as I am, I can turn around and remember that there\u2019s somebody lower.\u201d Everyone holds one another at an arm\u2019s length within the sparse, dry township.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The locals (at the behest of Crale) hassle Hansen the younger, first by invading his space. \u201cYou\u2019re standing in my place,\u201d grins the first hoodlum. The next feigns offense at trumped-up charges of the Swede not liking their piano tavern music. Finally, they bring his trunk down and rifle through it while telling him to leave town. Through it all, he holds his head high– until a yokel pulls out a gown that belonged to his mother. Seconds after tearing the heirloom in half, the good ol\u2019 boy catches a haymaker to his jaw. Hansen is punished for it, jumped by the three men, beaten severely, and put on a train out of town. For many, that would have been the end of their visit to the scenic West, but not Haymaker Hansen. His wounded walk back to town, center-framed on train tracks diminishing into the hostile horizon, is positively biblical– a weary Jesus on the road to Calvary.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLike the Wicked Witch coasting to Emerald City with her flying monkeys, Crale and his mounted party visit the Hansen homestead again. All smirk, Crale casually threatens to make Mirada\u2019s wife a widow if the family doesn\u2019t pack their bags and leave the land by the following Sunday. With that, the ticking time bomb is in place. It\u2019s here that the main players on the stage are presented with a definitive moral choice, to bend to tyrannical forces or to capitulate to save their skins. The crossroads is a microcosm of Trumbo\u2019s own dilemma over a decade prior, when Crale\u2019s \u201cSign this deed or I\u2019ll shoot you,\u201d came in the form of \u201cAre you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?\u201d Trumbo\u2019s refusal to engage with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 (citing First Amendment concerns– being a Communist wasn\u2019t a crime, after all) resulted in his blacklisting; Ben L. Perry fronted the script for him and initially received screen credit for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is through the language of community vs. individuality that Trumbo\u2019s fingerprints can be found all over the anti-McCarthyism metaphors. In a textbook Hero\u2019s Journey moment, George Hansen rallies the Mirada family to stand their ground with him. \u201cThere is only one reason why we must lose our farms. There is only one reason why my father was killed. You know what that reason is? It is because of fear, it is because we are afraid. We could turn this valley inside out, if only people were not afraid.\u201d Hansen may be speaking to Mirada, but it\u2019s really a shunned creative speaking to the Red-fearing audience through the silver screen. Mirada pays for his subsequent newfound bravery; Crale shoots him dead for refusing to kneel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so we come back to our Tarantino open. Hansen pulls up on the town wolf with all of the big dick energy of Brando strutting onto the waterfront to call the corrupt Johnny Friendly a \u201clousy stinking cheat\u201d to his face. The collective muscle of an entire town, running on the sick-and-tired power of the downtrodden, flex behind him. For all of Crale\u2019s talk and quick-draws, he\u2019s no quicker than a simple man with no more than a fisherman\u2019s implement and steadfast principles. The credits roll immediately after the showdown \u2013 a satisfying triumph for the common man that Ayn Rand and those who would create an entire committee on \u201cun-American activities\u201d are so frightened of.
“Terror in a Texas Town” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf everybody want to stick together, I stick with \u2018em. But if nobody want to stick together, I stick alone, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":586,"featured_media":14656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399,1381],"tags":[1431,1422,162],"class_list":["post-14651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","category-movies","tag-classic-corner","tag-looking-back","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22755,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14651\/revisions\/22755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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