FROM HELL TO TEXAS
US, 1958, 100 minutes, Colour.
Don Murray, Diane Varsi, Chill Wills, Dennis Hopper.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.
One of the many Westerns directed by Henry Hathaway over many decades. He directed the first colour Western in the thirties, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. He directed John Wayne in many films including The Sons of Katie Elder and his Oscar-winning True Grit. Hathaway was very successful at taut dramas and semidocumentary dramas in the forties, veteran director of many action films in the 30s including Lives of a Bengal Lancer, the first colour western, Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Diplomatic Courier is more in the vein of some of his 1940s thrillers, especially after World War Two, 13 Rue Madeleine, House on 92nd Street, Call Northside 777. After this he was to make some rather glossy Cinemascope films including The River of No Return and continue making westerns into the 60s with John Wayne such as The Sons of Katie Elder and True Grit, for which Wayne won a best actor Oscar.
This is a good competent, if conventional, Western with Don Murray an a nice and naive young hero - somewhat along the lines that he played in several films including Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe. The lesser known supporting cast give strong performances and make the Western a better than average treatment of its chaos theme.
1. A satisfying, interesting and enjoyable Western? Its presentation of basic Western themes? The American heritage and its presentation in Western guise?
2. Colour photography, Cinemascope, the use of Western locations and atmosphere? Musical score?
3. The basic chase theme and plot: audience response to the victim, hostility towards the pursuers? Tensions? Themes of vengeance, law, justice, innocence, danger, vindication?
4. The significance of the title and its reference to Hunter at the end?
5. Todd and the immediate impact of his being pursued, his seeming a victim, his being the hero? His turning the stampede against his pursuers, his skill for survival, shooting, wandering the desert? His declaration of his innocence and the audience believing it but his pursuers not? The importance of his innocence driving him on?
6. His resourcefulness as an American Western hero? His friendliness and people liking him and immediately helping him? Urging him for ways of doing things oven when he was unwilling? A nice and naive young man? The encounter with Nita and her father, the male-feminine clashes and the humour of the battle, her father and his care? The contrast with Hunter and his mourning his dead sons, his relentlessness, empire building, lack of scruple? His unwillingness to let Todd go? The contrast with Nita's finding Todd's Bible, the message of his mother Todd’s unwillingness to kill?
7. Hunter's tactics - his companion and his forcing him to go pursuing Todd and being the cause of his death? The deaths of his sons? This hope in his empire? The decision to split the group and the various deaths? His friend and the shooting in the mountains with the stone toppling on him? The two men and the Indian pursuit? The confrontation in the shop in the town? The pursuit of Hunter's men to the monastery? Shooting Nita’s father? His forfeiting audience sympathy by his relentlessness? The build-up to the final confrontation? The place of Tom and his shooting the horse, his complaints to his father?
8. Todd and the people who helped him - the geniality of Nita and her father, the coach driver and his helping him against the gunmen, with the Indians? The man at the bar helping him out the back door? The priest at the mission and the explanation of his father's life and death? The family and their trying to save him? The amount of friendship and love that he drew from people?
9. His decision to go to the show-down, his skill in tactics, the importance of the fire, the changing expectations when he vent to save Tom? The importance of the final speech between Hunter and Todd?
10. Nita and her family, the girls, the pleasant romantic interludes, the mother? The shooting of Nita's father, the operation, his recovery? The happy ending? Nita as heroine - like a man in the West, the humour of the bathing sequences, the kiss, her dressing in a dress, her fears, her wanting to go away with Todd, the happy ending?
11. The West as an image of the American heritage? The land. the gun, survival, the Indians, justice?
