Dalton Trumbo’s script for Terror In A Texas Town (1958) pits farmer against land owner; it’s a case of free will versus authoritarianism, socialism versus capitalism. These conflicts are rendered with dynamism by the great Joseph H. Lewis. Terror In A Texas Town, like Johnny Guitar (1954), is a highly stylized and political western.
Prairie City, Texas, the fictional locale of Terror In A Texas Town, is a one-buggy town. It’s a town where characters are defined by their work. With the exception of George Hansen (Sterling Hayden) and Johnny (Nedrick Young), characters never traverse spaces that aren’t tied to their work. Victor Millan’s Jose and Sebastian Cabot’s McNeil never leave the farm or boudoir. Social and political divisions are felt in these strict adherences to space.
Hansen can move about freely because he has no home, no place in the pecking order. He is a man that dreamed of “leaving the sea and having a home”. Hansen’s power to oppose oppression comes with his itinerant status. Likewise Johnny, rendered impotent with only one hand, has a claim on all spaces and all characters as the personification of death. He doesn’t seek a home or roots, Johnny lives only for the kill. Defining himself by the fear he provokes in his victims.
Of course it is the discovery of oil rich lands that is behind the trouble in Prairie City. It’s literally one man’s greed that is responsible for death and property damage. McNeil’s power comes with his wealth. He can only be opposed by a unified front that is only possible after the martyrdom of Jose who defiantly stands “as a man” against Johnny. The unified front elevates Hansen as a champion who, armed with a whaling harpoon, faces Johnny in a showdown.
Lewis executes Trumbo’s script with his monochromatic style. Lewis uses deep focus to reiterate the importance of space to the characters’ identities. Often Lewis frames two figures with one in the foreground and one further back, suggesting the power and agency of characters in juxtaposition with one another. This stratagem also suggests a homoerotic quality, particularly in the scenes focused on the impotent, one-handed Johnny.
Yet, for all of its aesthetic mastery, Terror In A Texas Town is a film of fumbled performances. As Jonathan Rosenbaum points out the acting in Terror In A Texas Town is stilted and is the film’s great weakness. Terror In A Texas Town is a superb film of bad performances. This paradox influenced the anti-westerns A Girl Is A Gun (1971) and Lonesome Cowboys (1968) where stilted performances became camp and were employed to deconstruct the genre.
