Texas Lady

Claudette Colbert is wonderful as Prudence, a woman who has to go to a little country town that's seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where she has inherited the local paper. The men about town are naturally surprised to find that she's a woman, and don't exactly welcome her spritely ways and 'interference' with 'their' paper. Luckily for Prudence, the card shark that she slayed in New Orleans comes to her rescue, which is nice of him after the beating she gave him in their game of poker - one of the film's most enjoyable scenes. Not a wonderful movie, but not bad, and pretty good for a Western.

Prudence (Claudette Colbert) travels to an isolated Texas town where she has inherited the local paper. She finds the place ruled over by the two men who wrested the area from the Indians twenty-five years before, and it is clear they do not welcome her free-spirited intervention. Upon arriving there, the manager refuses to give up control of the newspaper, claiming that he has no rights to it. To recover what is hers, Prudence must ally herself with the least expected person, her support comes in the unexpected shape (Barry Sullivan) of the a card player whom she previously met in New Orleans, and whom she hates because he blames him for her father's death. Womanly Wiles New Her Weapons !. A Lady...till the fighting started...then...what a woman!. The pulse-beat of a great state pounds in each lusty scene!. When the cold-blooded cattle barons moved in...she taught the whole town how to fight...Texas style! They were giants until a soft-spoken lady cut them down to size!

Texas Lady went to the American director Tim Whelan (nightmare night) the last work in a big screen he directed. Likewise, it was also the last film for prestigious screenwriter and western expert Horace McCoy, who died after being released in the cinemas. Stars the French actress Claudette Colbert that was Oscarized in 1935 for¨It happened one night¨by Frank Capra . Colbert gives a nice acting as a strong-headed woman from the East inherits a newspaper in a small Texas town where the local cattle barons, who control the region, want her out of their hair. Next to her are two known actors in the genre Western: Barry Sullivan (The Last Straw) gambler she has just bested in New Orleans for her own family reasons.and Ray Collins who can be remembered as James W Gettys in the famous Orson Welles film Citizen Kane. Claudette Collbert is not the only one that has the famous Statue of Oscars, so that the artistic director Ray Rennahan also got the prize a double award with the films: ¨Gone with the wind¨and ¨Blood and sand¨. There's also a lot of familliar secondaries from the Forties and Fifities, such as: James Bell, Horace McMahon, Gregory Walcott , John Litel, Douglas Fowley, Don Haggerty, Walter Sande, among others.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Tim Whelan, but nothing special. His career began as a writer in Hollywood where he began working with Harold Lloyd. It was while living in England that he made his mark as a director. Directed more films in Britain than in his native country, often for BIP, Gainsborough and (most of his best output in the 1930s) Alexander Korda's London Films. He is best remembered for the colorful fantasy classic The Thief of Bagdad (1940). His career spans from silent films to the 1950s with several films such as Rage at dawn (1955) , Utopia (1951), This Was a Woman (1948) , Badman Territory (1946), Higher and Higher (1943) , The perfect gentleman (1935), The Murder Man (1935) , Safety Last! (1923), among others. Rating: 5.5/10. The motion picture will appeal to Claudette Colbert fans.

My how the mighty have fallen. Roles must have gotten mighty hard to come by for an actress of Miss Colbert's caliber. This movie is very typical of 1950's oaters. The one unusal aspect is that Prudence (Miss Colbert) is initially a strong, independent woman, kind of unusual for a western. But in the end Gene Barry Sullivan Fitzgerald becomes her "protector". This is a very cornball movie and Gregory Walcott who plays Jess Foley has got to be one of the most wooden actors ever to grace the silver screen. One can almost see the pain on Miss Colbert's face as she delivers some of the corniest lines in movie history. It is such a can of corn it is worth watching for the unintentional humor it delivers.

On the way to a small Texas town to claim the local newspaper as her inheritance, Prudence Webb stops off to fleece a infamous gambler (Chris Mooney) in revenge for him winning a lot of money off her father – a debt that eventually led to his suicide. On arriving in the town, Prudence finds that the paper is run by Clay Ballard who denies that the paper was ever signed over to Webb's father and refuses to give up ownership. Prudence turns to the law and quickly makes enemies in the town by using the court system to claim her inheritance and wins her case. With the town's powerbase against her, who'd have expected that it would be Chris Mooney who would come to her aid?! And so goes the story with this fairly run-of-the-mill western that is strangely coloured and lacking anything special to really justify watching. The basic plot sees a bit of romance set against a back drop of a stranger in town causing a conflict with the bad element and, yes, it is delivered as flatly and unimaginatively as that summary suggests. The basic characters don't really add anything of interest and I did struggle to really care about any of them mainly because they were fairly cardboard and uninteresting. Of course, this being a b-movie sort of affair then it is maybe a bit unfair to be harsh on it because all it is aiming to do is fill time and provide a bit of entertainment and not much else. In that regard the film does alright – with poker games, fights, shoot outs, horse riding and action; none of it is anything special of course but it just about does enough to be distracting.

The cast pretty much match this with average performances all round. Colbert is OK but never made a lasting impression on me; she seems to enjoy the lead role and she matches the material. Sullivan should have been the slick man of the film and brought a spark to all his scenes, instead he is rather bland and only really has chemistry with Colbert in his opening poker scene. Support is nothing special at all and the "baddies" never really made much of an impact and thus didn't feed the tension within the narrative.

Overall this is a fairly average film with nothing special to really recommend it for. The story is OK and is delivered with enough stuff of entertainment value to make it passable and distracting on a wet Sunday afternoon but there are much better westerns than this around.

A good film depends upon good dialogue as much as visual action, and the dialogue in this Western is certainly above average. Horace McCoy wrote the excellent novel, ' They Shoot Horses, Don't They ? ' and his expertise as a writer shows. The actual plot is functional, and conforms to the usual trope of good people winning over the bad, and the plot has been gone over several times in other reviews. Claudette Colbert is an acquired taste as an actor, and despite reservations I usually respond to her. Her delivery of lines is excellent, and she holds the film together with her strong presence. She is totally incapable of showing much depth of feeling, but her surface approach to others around her works in certain roles, especially comedy, and she knows a witty line when she sees one. Barry Sullivan was a weak foil for her, but then again it works. And there is one scene in the film which is exceptional; an elderly woman shooting down a gunman where others fail to do so. It is a total surprise and this again is thanks to the well written script. As for Colbert running a small press in a small town this is just believable, and that she depends on any man to help her is equally unlikely, but yet again she makes it work. I have seen this film quite a few times in my life and I always enjoy it. It is not a great film, but it is far better than most other reviewers suggest. All the required ingredients are there, and it is not just mindless entertainment. It shows quite clearly that people should be free of oppressors, and it has a political edge which veers more towards equality than domination.