Aude Murphy Rides Mainly On The Plains Of Spain In This Hybrid Euro-American Oater

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	• Texican [VHS] Audie Murphy, Broderick Crawford Sony Pictures, 1996 view larger image
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An Audie Murphy Spaghetti Western!

This film was canned in Europe (Spain)and hauntingly similar to the style set by Sergio Leone in his Eastwood "Man with No Name" trilogy. The supporting actors are mostly Spanish except for the familiar figure of screen heavy Broderick Crawford. There is a blending of the Hollywood Westerns and the Italian Spaghettis in this one. The dubbing is so obvious (typical of spaghetties)but the storyline is easy to follow (typical of Hollywood westerns). Murphy's boyish looking demeanor is still here but his age shows in this one. The protagoinists still dress decently and "cleanly" (typical of Hollywood). The only reference to the slovenly atmosphere, dirt and perspiration stink (in Spaghetties) are the presence of flies stealing the scenes in some shots. The gunfire (whistling type of blast)and the Morricone type of music (done to nauseating extremes) definitley makes this a Spaghetti western with its good qualities. The distracting and dizzying closeup-shots of Italian spaghettis thankfully were not incorporated into this movie. If you have been accustomed to the Hollywood B westerns by Audie Murphy at Universal, this movie is still of similar mode, except that it has the spaghetti taste in it. This is a good movie for western fanatics who enjoy the genre.

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Aude Murphy Rides Mainly On The Plains Of Spain In This Hybrid Euro-American Oater

A clean-cut Audie Murphy stars in veteran western director Lesley Selander's gritty shoot'em up "The Texican" as a man confined in exile in Mexico because the authorities have placed $500 dollars bounty on his head in Texas across the Rio Grande. In the first scene, Jess Carlin (Audie Murphy of "The Cimarron Kid") turns over a horse thief to an American lawman, U.S. Marshal Dick (Luis Induni of "The Mysterious Island of Captain Nemo"), who meets with him at a rendezvous point on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Dick warns Carlin that as long as Carlin stays below the border that the law won't bother him. Initially, Carlin has no plans to cross over the border; he is cooling his heels in Mexico somewhat like Errol Flynn did in the 1945 Warner Brothers western "San Antonio." However, the idyllic paradise that Jess Carlin has grown accustomed to in the form of a pretty senorita, Elena (Marta May of "Seven Pistols for a Gringo") and a noisy little Mexican game of pitching stones at firecrackers on rocks to see who can set off the largest number retreats in his fond memories of the past after he learns from another American taking a siesta in Mexico that his upright, well-meaning brother Roy Carlin has been murdered.

John C. Champion and Jose Antonio de La Loma never clearly indicate what our protagonist did to get himself exiled to old Mexico. Villainous Luke Starr framed him for something, but that something is left unspecified. One day a down-on-his-luck American tries to pay for his liquor with a double-headed coin and Pablo, an irate Mexican barkeep, nearly beats him to a pulp. Jess helps the cowboy recover. At this point, our peace-loving protagonist learns from the cowboy that his brother, crusading Clarion newspaper editor Roy Carlin (Victor Vilanova of "The Killer with a Thousand Eyes"), has died in a gunfight. In the previous scene, the thoroughly repugnant and unrepentant Luke Starr (Oscar winning actor Broderick Crawford of "All the King's Men") guns Jess Carlin's brother Roy down in cold-blood and then arranges things so that appears like Roy shot it out with another gunman. Actually, the other gunman could have cleared Jess of Luke's charges, but neither he nor Roy survive their secret rendezvous as a stagecoach station twelve miles out of Rimrock.

Luke Starr's right-hand gunslinger Gil Rio (ubiquitous Spaghetti western star Aldo Sambrell of "Navajo Joe") guns down the other man. No sooner does Jess cross the border than a couple of bounty hunters descend on him. Jess wounds one, a bounty hunter who says he is after him because he needs money for his sick wife, and kills the other one outright. Later, that evening, three gunmen shoot up Jess' camp and he has to high-tail bare back on his horse to escape them. At an apparently deserted ranch, Jess leaves $40 for a saddle, but the owner Sandy Adams (Luz Marquez of "Three Sergeants of Bengal") catches him in the act. She relents when he explains his difficulty and then he rides into town. Since there is no law in the town run by Luke Starr, Jess doesn't have to concern himself with the authorities or bounty hunters. Jess and Luke circle each other for the remainder of this trim 81-minute horse opera lensed in Spain with a largely Hispanic cast. Eventually, Jess squares off with Luke's gunslingers on a main street shoot-out in a sandstorm and then he takes care of Luke.

The sight of Audie Murphy riding across the arid plains of Spain to composer Nico Fidenco's first-rate orchestral western score in an above-average oater is enough of a reason to watch "The Texican." Selander directs in his usual style, letting the cast play out their roles in long shot so that we can see them in relation to one another. Selander takes advantage of the sprawling Spanish scenery and incorpoates it into the action, particularly when our hero displays his superb horsemanship skills by taking his animal down a steep ridge. The sets look authentic enough and the wagons have the right size wheels on them. Were it not for some of the accents, you'd have no way of telling that this revenge western wasn't of the domestic variety. Some quotable dialogue enhances the action, and gravelly voiced Broderick Crawford is slimy villain who gets what he deserves in the end.

"The Texican" doesn't have any commentary tracks, but both the picture and sound quality are good. I've seen this oater many times and I don't have any problems with the actors speaking. However, you must remember that most of the thespians here are Europeans and their dialogue has been dubbed so that the voice coming out of their mouth probably isn't their voice. Nevertheless, the dubbing didn't interfere with the action.

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Real WWII Hero Gets Spaghetti

Audie Murphy, the real life WWII Soldier/Hero stars in his only Spaghetti Western.That alone should seal the deal for anyone with any interest in the Italian Western films of the 60s and 70s.Worthy of any Western collection.

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