The Texican

The Texican, I enjoyed this film. The atmosphere is effective, Audie Murphy gives a good performance and the script is none too bad. The action is well handled and the supporting cast glowers and/or simpers in all the right places. The loss of two stars is down to the dreadful performance of Broderick Crawford as the ‘heavy’. He sleepwalks through his role and appears to be ‘worse for wear’ at times. It’s a pity Audie died so young because he was lined up to play Scorpio in ‘Dirty Harry’. That could have taken his career into a new direction which, for fans like me, would have been exciting. Audie delivered some great performances, notably in ‘Red Badge of Courage’ and ‘No Name on the Bullet’, and carried numerous routine westerns on his back, lifting them to a level of enjoyment rarely seen in oaters. The only other actor able to do this regularly in low budget westerns was the great Randolph Scott. Audie held his own opposite acting giants like Jimmy Stewart, Michael Redgrave and Burt Lancaster …. it would have been interesting to see him up against Randolph.