The Man from Texas

Eagle-Lion studios inaugurated its new "big budget" western policy with 1948's The Man From Texas. James Craig stars as the El Paso Kid, who can't make up his mind whether to be an upstanding, decent citizen or a masked bandit. He continues to vacillate all through the picture, much to the dismay of his wife Zoe (Lynn Bari, in a rare sympathetic performance). Among those benefitting from the Kid's "good" spells is the Widow Weeks (Una Merkel), who's in danger of losing her farm. Singing star Johnnie Johnston wanders in and out of the proceedings as a frontier balladeer, occasionally commenting upon the action -- a device later used to better effect in Lang's Rancho Notorious and Zinneman's High Noon.