From Hell to Texas

From Hell to Texas (1958)

in the tradition of "StageCoach" "High Noon" and "Shane"

The naive cowboy Tod Lohman accidentally kills the son of the powerful land baron Hunter Boyd. Tod runs for his life, pursued by the dead man's vengeful brothers. Tod shelters on the ranch of Amos Bradley and he falls in love with his daughter Juanita. However, Tod is concerned that he'll eventually have to leave when his pursuers catch up with him.

Date of release
1958-04-29
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (33)
Runtime
1h 40m
Genres
Western
Director
Henry Hathaway

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Hell Bent Kid

From Hell to Texas is a 1958 American Western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Don Murray and Diane Varsi.

Production

Henry Hathaway made the film because it was the only project available at Fox at the time. He said the script was "rotten" but liked the central idea and agreed to make it if the script could be rewritten. Zanuck agreed and Hathaway and Wendell Mayes rewrote the script in two weeks. Mayes called it "a superb Western". Mayes later recalled:

Henry Hathaway is very easy for a writer to work with. He's absolutely dreadful for actors to work with: he's probably the toughest son of a bitch in Hollywood. He is tough for a reason: Hathaway is not the most articulate man in the world, and he maintains control of his set and of his crew and his actors by being cantankerous and rather cruel sometimes. He knows what he's doing; he isn't doing it out of hand.

When first offered the role of Tod Lohman, Don Murray turned it down, complaining that the script for "The Hell-Bent Kid" was "filled with unnecessary violence." According to Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, the actor eventually agreed to appear in the movie, but only after a complete rewrite job was done, omitting all the elements that Murray complained about.

Dennis Hopper, who had trained as a Method actor, walked off the set of From Hell to Texas several times over disagreements with director Henry Hathaway, who would continually order Hopper to "get over there and hit your mark and say your lines like I tell ya." After shooting on the film was completed, Hopper acquired the reputation of being "difficult." He was dropped from his Hollywood contract and did not act in a major studio film again until…

Hathaway has described the editing of From Hell to Texas in an oral history edited by Rudy Behlmer and conducted by production designer Polly Platt. It describes the role of Barbara McLean, then the head of the editing department at 20th Century Fox. After Ms.

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