The morally ambiguous phenomenon of border justice is the theme of Lesley Selander's eclectic 1966 Western.

Audie Murphy stars as Jess Carlin, an outlaw with a heart of gold who is forced to live in Mexico, just out of reach of the American authorities. When his brother Roy (Victor Vilanova), an idealistic newspaper man, is murdered, Jess decides to risk capture by crossing into the states to avenge Roy's death. Jess ventures into Rimrock, Arizona, a barely-tamed boom town held in the iron hand of corrupt gambler Luke Starr (Broderick Crawford). When Luke hears of Jess's approach, he orders his henchmen to gun him down, and warns them of Jess's speed and marksmanship, "the only way to get him is from behind."

En route to Rimrock, Jess faces down a pair of bounty hunters and befriends Roy's girl Sandy (Luz Marquez), a rancher and leatherworker who helps him determine Luke's complicity in Roy's death. Upon arriving, Jess promptly becomes romantically involved with Kit O'Neal (Diana Lorys) who happens to the bookkeeper at Luke's rowdy saloon, the Silver Ring.

When Jess finally confronts the criminal kingpin, Luke delivers a get-out-of-town ultimatum. But the warning goes unheeded. As Jess steps out onto the main street of Rimrock for an old-fashioned showdown, a dust storm blankets the town in shadow, and the Texican makes a last desperate stand against Luke and his criminal machine.

Stylistically, The Texican is a curious hybrid. The sound design of the film -- its clumsy dubbing, overwhelming score, and distinctive whistling gunshot effects -- immediately gives it away as a spaghetti Western. It was shot in Barcelona, and co-produced by the Spanish company Balcazar Producciones Cinematograficas. However, it is a spaghetti Western only in terms of its methods of production -- not in its visual style or cynical attitude. Unlike such revisionist Westerns as Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966), The Texican is a straight-up traditional oater -- that just happens to have been shot in Spain.

A Fistful of Dollars was completed in 1964, but wasn't released in the U.S. until 1966, so it is unlikely that The Texican was made in an effort to capitalize on its popularity. It merely followed a similar production model and bears a certain resemblance as a result.

The Texican makes no attempt to rewrite the narrative laws of the Western. In fact, it is a throwback to such cornerstones of the genre as John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) and Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (1952). The film was directed by American helmer Lesley Selander, who had an extensive career shooting low-budget Westerns (28 of them starring William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd). Since the mid-1950s, Selander was more often employed in television, directing episodes of Lassie (1955-1959) and Laramie (1959-1963).

Making The Texican provided Selander the opportunity to expand his visual horizons. Departing from the backlots of Universal Television, he would now be shooting in the arid mountains of Spain, in the anamorphic Techniscope process. In spite of the more broad realm of possibilities, though, Selander's style remains typical of television.

While Selander was the leading director of Laramie, the leading writer (clocking 15 episodes between 1959-1963) was John C. Champion, who also penned the screenplay to The Texican. As one might expect, this makes The Texican uncannily similar to Laramie but the conventional approach is significantly offset by the earmarks of European production and -- even more -- the presence of seasoned actors Audie Murphy and Broderick Crawford.

Murphy won the attention of Hollywood after becoming the most decorated American combat soldier in World War II. His highest-grossing picture was the autobiographical film To Hell and Back (1955), but the genre to which he seemed most attracted was the Western. By the time he appeared in The Texican, Murphy's star had begun to wane. He was battling insomnia and depression, believed to have been brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder. The Texican was his third-to-last film.

At the time of The Texican's production, Broderick Crawford was, like the film's director and writer, working mostly in television. But his larger-than life performance style succeeds in punching through the conventional plot and style of the film, and providing it with moments of rugged vigor.

Independently produced, The Texican was picked up for distribution by Columbia, but was not particularly successful. The explanation is less the quality of the film itself as the public's changing tastes. By the time it reached the screen, the rules of the Western were in the midst of being rewritten. As Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, and Sam Peckinpah took center screen and revitalized the ailing genre, a film as conventional as The Texican was sure to be -- like Jess Carlin in the climactic shootout -- lost in the dust.

Producers: Bruce Balaban, John C. Champion
Director: Lesley Selander
Screenplay: John C. Champion (screenplay and original story); Jose Antonio de la Loma (Spanish screenplay)
Cinematography: Francis Marin
Art Direction: Juan Alberto Soler
Music: Nico Fidenco
Film Editing: Teresa Alconcer
Cast: Audie Murphy (Jess Carlin), Broderick Crawford (Luke Starr), Diana Lorys (Kit O'Neal), Luz Marquez (Sandy Adams, Roy's Girl), Antonio Casas (Frank Brady, Roy's Assistant), Antonio Molino (Harv, Gil's Henchman), Aldo Sambrell (Gil Rio, Starr's Goon), John Peral (Eb, Gil's Henchman), Helga Genth (Mrs. Maria Banta), George Rigaud (Mitch), Luis Induni (U.S. Marshal Dick), Marta May (Elena, Jess' Mexican Girl), Víctor Vilanova (Roy Carlin, Clarion Publisher), Carlos Hurtado (Tobe)
C-91m.

by Bret Wood