Terror no Texas

This B-western begins with John Wayne as a town's sheriff. However, following a robbery, Wayen chases the baddies and thinks he's accidentally shot and killed an old friend--not knowing that the leader of the gang actually killed the man. Saddened by the death, he decides to quit the job and become a recluse...for a while. Eventually, he gets his act together and eventually unravels the mystery--saving the day.

Compared to other Wayne films of the era, this one is about average--entertaining but with a few problems here and there. The one big problem for me was the use of stunts--which were usually the highpoint of these films. Instead of staging new stunts, they sloppily took clips from other Wayne films and stuck them in--less than seamlessly. For example, though the grass is short and they are in a semi-wooded area, when baddies are shot, they fall in very high grass with no trees about them! Sloppy...and obviously recycled. Still, the rest of the film is breezy light entertainment--what you'd expect from such an unpretentious film.

A couple things to look for is a particularly bad job of acting and directing when the heroin enters the film. She talks directly to the camera and her delivery is less than magical...in fact, it's craptastic. Also, look for Gabby Hayes as the new sheriff. Unlike many of his other western roles, here he wears his dentures and sounds very erudite--without that 'old coot' voice you usually expect from him. This isn't too surprising, as in these Wayne westerns, Hayes experimented a lot with his characters--even sometimes playing bad guys or action heroes...of sorts.

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!

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.

John Wayne plays a sheriff who mistakenly believes he killed his best friend. So he turns in his badge and goes to live in the woods. A year later the dead friend's citified daughter shows up. Wayne has to rescue her and she offers him a job as foreman on the ranch she inherited from her father. Romance follows but not without some troubles. Eventually Wayne finds out who really killed his pal and straps on his guns to get justice.

In many ways this is a routine B western, the type Duke made plenty of early in his career. The plot elements and even some of the stunts seem familiar to other Wayne oaters I've seen from the period. But there are some interesting things I haven't seem before. John Wayne being broody, for one thing. At one point we see him with a beard and trying to look disheveled. Kind of funny. Gabby Hayes is also in this but without the grizzled old-timer shtick we all love. It's enjoyable enough for the type of unchallenging movie it is. I think these were mostly aimed at kids back in the day so don't expect anything deep.

"Texas Terror" is better than a lot of the Wayne Lonestar Productions. In this one, Wayne gets a chance to expand on his usual innocent-tough guy persona. After an incident where his friend gets shot, a distraught Wayne quits his job as sheriff. He falls apart and grows a beard and looks like he's halfway towards turning into a Gabby Hayes, gruff-old- goat character. He then does another nice-turn-around to get back to being the hero. Wayne is less stiff and actually looks interested in the scenes he's in. Its really one of his best early performances.

Besides Wayne getting to play a more multi-dimensional character, there's a great plot twist at the end. It is Wayne's Indian friends who come charging on horseback to the rescue. It is nice to see a 1935 movie where the Indians are truly the good guys and heroes in the tale.

There's an hilarious milking contest in the middle. The losing milker looks exactly like the Pappy Yokum character from Li'l Abner. He was probably the prototype.

Overall, this Wayne Lonestars becomes more interesting as it goes along. This is not something you can say about some others.