Tonight's Movie: The Kid From Texas (1950) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

THE KID FROM TEXAS (1950) is the final film from Kino Lorber's Audie Murphy Collection Volume 4.

The other two films in the set are the previously reviewTHE CIMARRON KID (1952) and DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER (1954).

THE KID FROM TEXAS was Murphy's fourth film, and his first starring Western. Later that year he also appeared in SIERRA (1950), a film I like very much, and KANSAS RAIDERS (1950), a sad film I didn't like.

In KANSAS RAIDERS Murphy played Jesse James, and in THE KID FROM TEXAS he's another outlaw, William Bonney, aka "Billy the Kid."

I found THE KID FROM TEXAS the better of the two "outlaw" films, as Murphy's Billy has more back story and motivation to make him understandable and at times even likeable.

Land wars are raging in Lincoln County, New Mexico, and when Billy's kindly mentor, a rancher named Jameson (Shepperd Strudwick) is murdered, Billy takes it upon himself to hunt down all those involved in the killing.

Jameson's friend Alexander Kain (Albert Dekker) makes questionable choices, happy that Billy kills off some rivals but then wanting him to also take the rap, despite having been deputized after Jameson's killing.

Kain's choices impact his relationship with his much younger bride, Irene (Gale Storm). Kain looking askance at his loyal wife any time she speaks to Billy doesn't help matters.

It all builds to a violent conclusion...

THE KID FROM TEXAS is a fast-moving 78 minutes scripted by Robert Hardy Andrews and Karl Kamb based on Andrews' story.

It manages not to be quite as depressing as some other "outlaw" films, including KANSAS RAIDERS, but that said, it's unusually bloody for the era and as one might suspect, it doesn't end well. I found it worthwhile but doubt it's one I'll return to with any frequency, unlike other Murphy Westerns I love.

The film has an interesting subplot in the marriage of Kain and Irene. When she arrives in town she seems perfectly happy to have married a prominent man, but we soon realize her parents probably pushed the marriage, seeing security with what they perceived as an admirable man, and once problems arise it doesn't take her long to voice doubts.

I enjoyed Storm as Irene. An interesting touch I noted is that as the film goes on, her long hair is coiled into increasingly tight hairstyles. This might have been meant to reflect her growing marital unhappiness.

Murphy was apt casting as the black-clad Billy. He struck me as a little more comfortable here than in some of his other earliest roles; Billy being a relatively silent man of action might have helped a bit.

The film has the type of excellent supporting cast typically found in Universal Pictures Westerns, including Will Geer, William Talman, Robert Barrat, Ray Teal, and Walter Sande. Frank Wilcox is a convincing Pat Garrett.

The movie was directed by Kurt Neumann and filmed in Technicolor by Charles Van Enger.

The print of this film is unfortunately not at the level we've come to expect from Kino Lorber. It's quite washed-out, with variable coloring. At a few scene fadeouts, the orange of lamplight or fire oddly changes to bright green and red dots.

I'd be curious to know if it's a situation where the available elements were poor or there was some kind of error with the print provided to Kino Lorber. Fortunately there are no skips or jumps and the soundtrack is crisp and clear. If this print is, for unknown reasons, "as good as it gets," I'd certainly rather have this very watchable print available rather than nothing.

Extras consist of a commentary track by Gary Gerani; the trailer, which like the other trailers in the set was newly mastered in 2K; and a gallery of five additional trailers for Audie Murphy films.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

Tweet