The First Texan (1956)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Byron Haskin

Writers:

Daniel B. Ullman (story)
Daniel B. Ullman (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 June 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

A GIANT OF A MAN...IN A GIANT OF A LAND! Tall in the saddle, restless of heart...he ranged across a violent land, forging an era with cold steel!

Plot:

After arriving in Texas to escape a scandal back east, lawyer Sam Houston just wants to hang out his shingle...

Plot Keywords:

Independence | Lawyer | Texas | Mexican Army | Texan

Cast

Joel McCrea	...	Sam Houston
Felicia Farr	...	Katherine Delaney
Jeff Morrow	...	Jim Bowie
Wallace Ford	...	Henry Delaney
Abraham Sofaer	...	Don Carlos - magistrate
Jody McCrea	...	Lt. Baker
Chubby Johnson	...	Deaf Smith - army scout
William Hopper	...	William Barrett Travis
Dayton Lummis	...	Stephen Austin
Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.	...	Col. Cos (as Rodolfo Hoyos)
Roy Roberts	...	Col. Sam Sherman
David Silva	...	Santa Ana
Frank Puglia	...	Pepe (San Antonio Hotel owner)
James Griffith	...	Davy Crockett
Nelson Leigh	...	Col. Hockley

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Janss Conejo Ranch, Thousand Oaks, California, USA

Company:

Allied Artists Pictures

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: On the first day of December, in 1832, a man rode up to a muddy stream called the Red River. When he crossed this river, he was in Texas. He was a man in search of a new life, because his previous one had left him desolated and sick at heart. He was a man of size and strength and he had history in his hands. His name was Sam Houston.

Movie Connections:

Version of Man of Conquest (1939)

Soundtrack:

The First Texan

Sam Houston Deserves A Broader More Expensive Production

One of my favorite characters in American history has always been Sam Houston. I've tried to read everything I could about the man and his life and work. It's a story that has its protagonist at the center of all kinds of events in our history from the Indian Wars of the South serving with Andrew Jackson even before The Battle of New Orleans right up to his heroic fight to keep Texas in the United States before the Civil War. His is the story of America during her growing years.

We've never really had an adequate biographical film of Houston. Sam Elliott did a very good job covering a period between his abrupt resignation as Governor of Tennessee right up to the events of San Jacinto in a made for TV film, J.D. Cannon in an acclaimed episode for the Profiles in Courage series did a wonderful job dramatizing those events as Governor of Texas as he led the losing battle for the union. Houston has been played on the screen by such people as Richard Dix, Richard Boone, Stacy Keach, and here by Joel McCrea.

Had this film been given a really top production by a major studio like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, etc. this could have been one epic film. Joel McCrea is superb casting in the role, Houston was a big man, well over six feet tall and McCrea certainly is impressive physically that way. The problem is that this was done by Allied Artists, Monogram Pictures dressed up so to speak. If The First Texan had a decent budget, someone like John Ford or Raoul Walsh to direct it, Houston might have had a biographical film worthy of the man.

The facts as to the Battle of San Jacinto are pretty accurately set down. The romance McCrea is given with Felicia Farr is something else. Houston was divorced from his first wife Eliza Allen and did not marry Margaret Lea until the middle of the 1840s after Eliza died. Divorce was mighty rare in those days.

Joel McCrea is always a favorite of mine as a cowboy hero, it's with great reluctance I give The First Texan a less than stellar review, but the subject deserves a lot better than a B western from Allied Artists.

Maybe Sam Houston will one day get either a film or a mini-series worthy of him. Until then I suggest one read Marquis James's biography of him. James is one great writer his prose is practically lyrical and you'll get a great feel for the subject in reading him.