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Return of the Texan

Return of the Texan

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Summary

A widower brings his family back to his old home town in Texas, hoping to make a success of the family farm. Drama, starring Dale Robertson and Joanne Dru

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IMDB

Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

David Parkinson

Surgery prevented Henry Hathaway from directing this paean to the Lone Star state, but Delmer Daves made an admirable deputy. It would have been easy to turn this adaptation of Fred Gipson's novel, The Home Place, into sentimental mush. But Dudley Nichols (once John Ford's go-to screenwriter) makes a grand job of focusing on character rather than cliché. When widower Dale Robertson comes home to raise his two sons he is welcomed very differently by his grumpy rancher neighbour Richard Boone and his kindly sister-in-law, Joanne Dru. Three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan steals scenes for fun as Robertson's impish grandpa, whose reluctance to quit poaching brings matters to a head. Clearly under instructions to portray Texas as an earthly paradise, cinematographer Lucien Ballard makes the monochrome imagery look sublime. But it's the tonal shifts that make the film so engaging, as Nichols and Daves flit from comedy to romance to good old-fashioned melodrama, aided by the unshowily skilled playing of the estimable cast.

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6.6/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameSam CrockettDale RobertsonAnn MarshallJoanne DruGrandpa Firth CrockettWalter BrennanRod MurrayRichard BooneStud SpillerTom Tully

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Crew

rolenameDirectorDelmer Daves

Details

Released on

1952-06-16

Languages

English

Formats

Black and white

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