Abenteuer in Texas

Under the mistaken belief that he killed his best friend, John Wayne quits his job as sheriff and leaves town to become a desert tramp. A year later, he cleans up his act in order to help his friend's daughter with the horse ranch she inherited. The two fall in love but the real murderer plans on ruining the ranch in order to take her away!

Texas Terror is a likable entry in Lone Star's series of Saturday matinée westerns starring Wayne. It has a well-written script with some decent melodrama to go along with the action and has one of the better love stories of the series.

Near the beginning, this gives the viewer an irresistible chance to get a look at Wayne in a full beard and dirty clothes. That's certainly something I've never seen before.

In this Lone Star production, John Wayne is a sheriff who is tricked into thinking he killed his best friend and that selfsame friend was part of a robbery of an express company.

So distraught is Wayne over this that he quits the sheriff's job and becomes a desert prospector. In these scenes the Duke with that growth of beard on him looks a whole lot like his character Tom Doniphan in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Wayne does a major reclamation job on himself after he rescues Lucile Browne from a stage holdup. Browne is the best friend's daughter.

Of course in the end the Duke does find out who are the real culprits with the help of some grateful and friendly Indians. How the Indians get into it, you have to watch Texas Terror.

Texas Terror is set in a more modern version of the west. The stage is actually a large sedan and the people out here use telephones. Kind of like the settings of most later Roy Rogers westerns.

Gabby Hayes is on hand as well as the former sheriff who steps back into his job when Wayne quits and LeRoy Mason who was in so many of these Lone Star films for Monogram as well makes a convincing villain as always.

This entry in Wayne's series of Lone Star westerns that he made for Monogram in the 30's is a cut above the average. It has a good plotline and plenty of action crammed into its 51 minute running time.

In the early part of the film we see Wayne depart from his usual clean-cut hero image when he thinks that he has killed his best friend. He grows a beard and has a generally unkempt appearance almost foreshadowing a similar appearance at the end of "Three Godfathers" (1948).

The film is also enhanced by the appearance of such "B" western stalwarts as LeRoy Mason as the villain and a pre-Gabby George Hayes as the sheriff. There is also an unusually large cast of extras in the "Indians to the rescue" sequence which does not appear to be stock footage. The stunt work (likely coordinated by Yakima Canutt) is also superb.

Not a bad way to spend an hour.

I've seen this a few times now, but this was the 1st time on DVD with new digital music added to pep it up. Unfortunately it doesn't pep it up, it simply makes you wonder what the producers of the video release were thinking of in messing about with the original soundtrack. They wouldn't have been allowed to ruin 'Frankenstein' with senseless and incongruous dramatic chords sprinkled throughout, so why cheapies like this? This was a budget release, why couldn't they have spent any spare cash on eliminating the frame wobble?

Big John's in good form, with lots of noble deeds to do and the usual Lone Star chases on horseback back and forth across California (not Texas) in 1934. In a case of mistaken identity the heroine says to him that she "doesn't know words vile enough to express her contempt for him". Sadly todays heroines would have no such problem! Nice to see Gabby Hayes just after his last shave!

A good film for fans of the genre, not even marred by the shortness (49 minutes on this DVD) - Wayne made so many of these you'll be lucky to live long enough to see 'em all!

Wayne portrays a Texas sheriff at around the turn of the 20th century who is framed for the murder of his best friend. His best friends daughter finds out about what is believed to be The Sherriff's brutal act, yet Wayne finds out the truth and brings the real killers to justice. Kudos to the Duke!