The Tall Texan

Despite a muddled script and a barrel bottom budget, this stark little b&w western remains oddly fascinating, even among today's color fests.

Check out that barren New Mexico desert that never leaves the eye for the hour-plus runtime. It's a perfect backdrop for the six guys and one gal trapped by Comanches in the lonely spaces. The travelers are basically on-foot now that their wagon's been overturned by the warriors. Good thing a more peaceful Indian group just wants to keep them off their sacred burial grounds, but otherwise just keeps them under a watchful eye.

Worse than the Indians, the guys find gold dust while rooting around for water, thus introducing a fresh and maybe more ominous set of complications. So now they're trapped not only by Comanches but by their own mounting greed, especially when Adler finds nuggets on the sacred burial ground -- no wonder the Indians keep watching them. It's that combination that really distinguishes the plot, even though the connecting threads are often obscure (or maybe that's just me).

Anyhow, it's a distinguished cast, laid low by looming Hollywood blacklist, and willing to take on even bottom barrel Lippert Pictures and a rapid 8-day shooting schedule. It's a strappingly adventurous Lloyd Bridges, a forceful Lee J. Cobb, a sneaky little Luther Adler, and an unexpectedly compliant Marie Windsor, a long way from her usual heartless vixens. Anyway, none are particularly likable or dislikable, sort of like many everday encounters.

Note too the underlying subtext of how the panned gold and nuggets should be distributed among the six men and maybe the woman. Should it be an equal division or should each keep his own findings, or maybe even extract from others, that is, if they can agree on amounts, or, worse, just plain get away with stealing it. I'm not surprised, given the political climate of the early '50's, that such a distribution question would be raised ( competing modes of socialism or capitalism). Doing it, however, within this context is especially distinctive.

No, the flick doesn't rise to the level of hidden gem, but does manage a sort of primitive earth spell. So, don't pass it up. The compensations are there.

The Tall Texan succeeds because of a fortuitous combination of elements-setting, background music, romance, suspense, and characterization. Although termed low budget, the photography amidst impressive rock formations successfully creates the illusion of taking place on the edge of sacred Indian burial grounds somewhere northwest of El Paso in New Mexico's City of Rocks. The background music has the flavor of Aaron Copland as motifs for the Sea Captain (Lee J. Cobb) ,the crooked peddler Tinnen (Luther Adler) and Ben Trask,the Tall Texan (Lloyd Bridges) recur throughout the drama.The Tympani throbs create tension near the close as Ben Trask fights for his life. An intriguing romance develops between a free spirited woman (Laura Thompson-Marie Windsor) and a prisoner accused of a crime he didn't commit (Ben Trask- Lloyd Bridges). A rapid metamorphosis of contempt to admiration to affection develops as Laura discerns Ben's honest unassuming character. Ben Trask's rival, a hot tempered former sea captain wins the hearts of the audience by developing latent altruistic characteristics. Robert Lippert and Elmo Williams have masterfully and tastefully combined these elements into a well-made drama.

The Tall Texan casts Lloyd Bridges as a prisoner by sheriff Samuel Herrick to trial. To save time they are cutting across Indian country in a covered wagon driven by Syd Saylor along with other passengers Dean Train and wife Marie Windsor and beached sea captain Lee J. Cobb. They pick up a wounded Indian and no good deed goes unpunished in the west as his tribe who had wounded him in the first place wants him back to finish the job.

During the attack Train is killed and the Indians are driven off. In gratitude the Indian gives them some gold nuggets and shows them where there is a lot more. Problem being that the mother lode is in an Indian burial ground. The Indians take the groups guns from them and say they can pan for gold, but not to go beyond a marker they've set down.

They're all just ordinary folks, no cowboy heroes in this bunch. But the worst of them is a bottom feeding peddler they've picked up played by Luther Adler. He's the serpent in their golden garden and he's the real cause of their downfall.

Had this film been done at a major studio it might have proved as much a classic as that other film about gold fever, Lust For Gold which Columbia did a few years earlier. Still coming from Lippert Pictures it must be counted as a miracle that it turned out as well as it did.

A nice ensemble cast gives some great performances and the nice location shooting sure helps.

Try and catch this one if it's broadcast.

Fresh off his success as award winning editor on "High Noon", Elmo Williams takes the Directors chair here for the first time. Often compared to Ford's "Stagecoach" this character study of lust and greed is more reminiscent of "Treasure of Sierra Madre." Bridges is superb as the tight lipped convict, Trask(the Tall Texan), however the real acting kudos go to Adler and Cobb as sniveling peddler and sadistic sea captain, respectively. The picture slowly builds to an action packed climax and a deliberately inconclusive ending. This is perhaps the finest picture from Lippert Inc.

Robert Lippert, the force behind Lippert Films and later Regal Films, was a very resourceful Poverty Row filmmaker from the late 40s through the 50s who managed to make extremely interesting films with even more interesting casts on a low, sometimes shoestring, budget. He covered all the B film genres: Film Noir ("A Stolen Face"), Westerns ("Little Big Horn"), science fiction ("Rocket Ship X-M"), horror ("Lost Continent"), and war ("The Steel Helmet"). The studio occasionally even turned out more expensive period dramas (like "The Baron of Arizona") with class and some style.

In retrospect it seems inevitable that in the late 40s and early 50s elements of the newly emerging Film Noir genre would seep into the already well-established Western format. Memorable Noirish Westerns of the period include "Pursued," "Blood on the Moon," "The Furies," "Colorado Territory," "Ramrod," and two classics of the new hybrid genre: "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Lust for Gold."

"The Tall Texan" is a minor masterpiece, interweaving themes from more traditional Westerns like "Stagecoach" with Noirish elements like lust, deceit, greed, betrayal, fate, paranoia, and irony with a disparate group of mismatched, morally ambiguous travelers thrown together by fate.

A great cast of Film Noir types (femme fatale Marie Windsor, laconic antihero Lloyd Bridges, fish-out-of-water sea captain with a shady past Lee J. Cobb, morally corrupt lawman Stanley Herrick, and ruthlessly unprincipled bottom-feeder Luther Adler) look as though they would be equally comfortable in a Twentieth Century urban setting with dingy buildings, rain-soaked streets and shadowy alleyways. However, they are also perfectly suited here, claustrophobically trapped in a metaphoric maze of giant boulders, unfriendly Indians, and their own greedy lust for gold.

Under the taut direction of Elmo Williams, the editing genius who transformed "High Noon" from a routine Western into a taut, edge-of- your-seat masterpiece, "The Tall Texan" is a highly recommended sleeper that both fans of Westerns and Film Noir will enjoy.