Le Traître du Texas

Horizons West is directed by Budd Boetticher with a story written by Louis Stevens. It stars Robert Ryan, Rock Hudson, Julia Adams, John McIntire, Raymond Burr & Dennis Weaver. It's a Technicolor production with Charles P. Boyle on photography.

It's the end of the Civil War and the Hammond brothers Neal (Hudson) and Dan (Ryan) return to the family ranch in Texas. Neal is happy to graft away on the ranch but Dan wants considerably more. But Dan's plans are altered after an encounter with Cord Hardin (Burr), an encounter that sees Dan switch to the wrong side of the law. A switch that drives a wedge thru the Hammond family, particularly since Neal has decided to don a badge and become a Marshal of Austin.

Interesting and watchable early Western effort from Budd Boetticher. It has some psychological aspects that mark it out as being above average. Themes of greed and family strife are of course nothing new in the grand scheme of the Western movie, but Boetticher and his cast knit them together here with some conviction, notably Ryan who was in the middle of a great run of movies that included On Dangerous Ground, Beware, My Lovely and The Naked Spur. There's no real complexities to the characters, but they are well formed, and the finale has the courage of its convictions. There's also some very neat period costuming from Rosemary Odell, with the quite ravishing Adams benefiting greatly there. The main problematic issues outside of some narrative familiarity come with being asked to believe that Ryan and Hudson (whose limp) are brothers, and that McIntire is Ryan's father (there's only two years between them in reality). Whilst there's sadly a lack of impacting outdoor photography; even if that's off set a touch by the easy on the eye set designs for the town by Russell A. Gausman & Joseph Kish.

A more than adequate time filler for the discerning Western fan. 6/10

Horizons West casts Robert Ryan and Rock Hudson as the Hammond brothers, Confederate veterans of the Civil War who take different lessons from losing the conflict. Rock just wants to go back and settle down with their parents John McIntire and Frances Bavier and make their cattle ranch pay. Robert Ryan does not like being on the losing side and wants to be rich and powerful.

Only problem is that Yankee carpetbaggers like Raymond Burr are grabbing everything in the South that's of any value. After a humiliating poker defeat from Burr, Ryan vows to get even and get Julie Adams who is Burr's wife and whom he takes a fancy to.

Budd Boetticher directed this and while Boetticher is more famous for some of the features he did with Randolph Scott, this one has a lot to recommend it. Ryan gives a powerful performance as a man twisted by both revenge and defeat. He does defeat Burr, but in the process loses his humanity and his family though he gains Adams for what good that does him in the end.

This western is also has a dubious distinction of boasting performances by James Arness and Dennis Weaver before they co-starred in Gunsmoke. Arness plays a Confederate veteran friend of both Hammond brothers who gravitates to Hudson. Weaver is another Confederate veteran who becomes Ryan's second in command in the rustling gang he first organizes in his quest for power.

Horizons West still holds up well for today's audiences. Recommended highly for western fans, Budd Boetticher fans, and Robert Ryan fans.

As in many westerns, including Richard Thorpe's VENGEANCE VALLEY, or Phil Karlson's GUNMAN'S WALK, it is question of a brothers feud story; here Robert Ryan and Rock Hudson, and in the MGM western, there were Burt Lancaster and Robert Walker. There is always a bad brother and the good brother, as in the Bible you have Cain vs Abel, a recurrent western scheme. And the Civil War element of course enhanced, emphasized, this feud between brothers matters. No surprise in the end. Here, you explore the Universal Studios Budd Boetticher period, before he came to Columbia and the awesome Burt Kennedy's stories, starring Randolph Scott, his best of the best stuff. It is very unusual to see Bob Ryan working for another studio than RKO. The rest of the cast is however typical Universal Studios"home": Rock Hudson, Julia Adams; only Piper Laurie and Tony Curtis or Jeff Chandler missed.... So, this is an efefctive, taut, Boetticher's material. Ray Burr is of course excelent as a genuine villain character.

How many westerns (and others) feature two brothers ,the good and the bad,Abel and Cain?It was already in Genesis after all.It's more Ryan too old to be Hudson's brother than the other way about;sixteen years between the two leads is much and it shows.But Robert Ryan was as excellent as ever in his part of an ex-confederate soldier who does not want to work on a ranch and dreams of building an empire ,abetted by a femme fatale -a rare character in westerns.But as Springsteen sings,a king ain't satisfied till he owns everything and as Shakespeare wrote,(man)gains the world and loses his soul.On the contrary ,brother Hudson is a loyal good son,probably remembering the prodigal son parable ;Hudson would play a similar part in Sirk's modern western (the sport car replacing the horse)"written on the wind" (1956):some kind of adoptive child opposite a wealthy bad son (Robert Stack);he was also the good guy in "Giant" in which Dean became a racist tycoon.

"Horizons west" is an entertaining western,its last pictures summing up its moral in admirably succinct style.

the best thing about this western is its title. the next best thing is its glorious technicolor imagery. the 'look' of this film makes it a classic western - fully lit western skies, iconographic star close ups of confederate soldiers and texas belles - richly textured in luscious technicolor. the title - horizons west - and the beauty of the images sum up the idea of manifold destiny and western expansion. curiously the narrative itself contradicts the look as elder brother robert ryan abandons the simple homestead lifestyle for the corruptly sophisticated attractions of town life. as younger brother (rock hudson)is pitted against older brother (ryan), there are suggestions of biblical undertones. hudson, now a deputy marshal, eventually hunts down ryan for murder thereby restoring the idea of honesty and integrity as part of western expansion.