Review of From Hell to Texas

A handsome, mildly pacifist young man who has remarkable marksmanship with a rifle (doesn't carry a handgun and regrets killing even in self defense) is chased across mountains, deserts, and border frontier towns of old west southern Texas by a wealthy rancher who wrongly believes he killed his son. A subplot has the hero and daughter of another helpful rancher falling in love. The cast is diverse with numerous male and female Hispanic actors on both sides of the struggle given prominent roles. Some of the horses are even given small acting bits.

I was expecting the ending to be the usual good guy versus bad guy fatal showdown seen in a million other westerns but what happened was a complete surprise, in a good way. This is the type of dramatic western with a moral lesson Rod Serling could have written. The director went on to direct three John Wayne westerns and had already directed Wayne in a non-western, so Wayne must have seen this film and liked it. It is definitely worth a look, despite the studio's poor choice of a title (the word "hell" does get a mention in the dialogue at the very end). If you have youngsters in need of positive role models, this film is a good choice in a western to get them started while still providing satisfactory western story entertainment for us older folks.