The Man from Texas (1948) Poster

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4/10
"The Good Book says, relieve the weary traveler of his burden".
classicsoncall10 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Not surprising that this film doesn't have any reviews up to this point. I've only come across it as part of the Mill Creek Entertainment collection of two hundred fifty mostly little known B Westerns. This one's a below average entry, almost to the point of being inane. Had I known the main character Tobias Simms/El Paso Kid (James Craig) was going to get married to his wife Zee (Lynn Bari) more than once I would have kept track. I can understand how this might have been confusing for the young Heath kids, who were present for each ceremony, their last names changing each time to accommodate the new town they found themselves in. You see, Toby was addicted to being an outlaw, and even though Zee attempted to leave him behind every time he took off with his gang, she always wound up back with him. This yo-yo effect got monotonous after a while, and I found myself rooting for Zee to just up and run away as she threatened to do any number of times.

But that wasn't the most unbelievable part of the story. In his travels, El Paso comes across a widow (Una Merkel) who had nine kids in nine years, but none of them were around! It was explained that her husband's folks took them away, presumably because she was too poor to take care of them. With money 'borrowed' from a local bank, The Kid pays off her home, has the bank representative robbed of the the money, and later proceeds to pay back the money he got from banker Hickey (Harry Davenport).

The way the story ends is a puzzler too. As the law eventually catches up with Mr. Kid (Hickey's name for Toby), he's arrested and on his way to prison. Ever the honorable outlaw, he helps prevent a train robbery, then puts himself back into the custody of the marshal. You would think that Mrs. Kid would have been fed up by now, but the couple is genuinely relieved that his sentence has been reduced to a year and a day. If I had to bet, they'll get married once he gets out.
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5/10
Shaky A Western Fails To Captivate
boblipton12 June 2021
James Craig loves wife Lynn Bar and his kids (who are never seen), but his work annoys her: he leads a criminal gang as the Pecos Kid. He keeps trying to go straight, but circumstances and his temper keep getting in the way.

One of a half dozen or so movies with the exact same title, this movie was Eagle-Lion's attempt to rise above its PRC grade-Z western roots, since Lash Larue wasn't going to do it. It has a fine cast of supporting players, including Una Merkel, Wallace Ford and Harry Davenport, but producer Bryan Foy had spent too many years running Warner's B division to waste any money, so most of the movie is shot in the cheapest way possible, including a lot of newspaper headlines to advance the story. The result is certainly watchable, but the humor is too heavy-handed to sparkle.
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4/10
The Masked Bandit
StrictlyConfidential1 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
"The Man From Texas" was originally released back in 1948.

Anyway - As the story goes - The El Paso Kid has a loving but impatient wife who wishes him to give up his bandit ways and stay on the straight and narrow path. The Kid, himself, wishes to lead an honest life but circumstances dictate that he perform one more "dishonest" act to benefit a widow who is at risk of losing her ranch.
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3/10
The El Paso Kid
bkoganbing7 September 2015
Based a little bit on the character of Jesse James, James Craig stars as the notorious El Paso Kid who's made a nice living as an all around outlaw. But he's getting older and the places he can operate in the great state of Texas are getting fewer. Not to mention Lynn Bari his wife wants him to just get out of the outlaw business. She wants a church wedding because she doesn't feel rightly married with a justice of the peace even with two children already.

But he keeps getting dragged back in. Not that Craig hasn't some good impulses as he helps widow Una Merkel save her ranch from being repossessed by skinflint banker Harry Davenport.

It was interesting to see Davenport who usually plays kindly old gentlemen and is almost never a villain type in a role that Donald Meek or Berton Churchill would normally play. Of course both were gone when Man From Texas was released by Eagle-Lion.

Singer Johnny Johnston is in this as well as a singing sidekick to Craig.

In the end Craig completely redeems himself.

Man From Texas is a mediocre western that only if you are fan of someone in the cast you should bother with.
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6/10
Better Than I Initially Expected
Uriah4313 July 2022
This film essentially revolves around a man named "Tobias Simms" (James Craig) who is also believed by some of the local residents to be the notorious bandit known as the El Paso Kid. And with each daring robbery his reputation gets even more tarnished. So much so that his wife "Zee Simms" (Lynn Bari) has become ashamed to show her face to many of her neighbors. To that effect, when she threatens to leave, he subsequently promises her that he will go straight. However, he soon finds that this is much more difficult than he realizes and that his past actions still have consequences that he must eventually face. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I wasn't generally expecting much from this film as I figured it was just another grade-B Western produced during a time when they were all too common. However, having now seen it, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by it overall. Admittedly, the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white and the picture quality wasn't that particularly good, certainly didn't help matters. Even so, I thought that both James Craig and the beautiful Lynn Bari performed quite well in their respective roles and for that reason I have rated this film accordingly. Slightly above average.
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Good good western from a comedy specialist
searchanddestroy-115 May 2023
A comedy specialist as a director - Leigh Jason, who finished his career a couple of years later by a war movie: OKINAWA. We hardly feel the comedy director whilst watching this movie, it may even look like a Ray Enright, a western specialist from this very period, late forties. Good and solid script. Unfortunately the finale is really cheesy, and then we can admit that something went wrong in the story. So shame, because I began to think about something far better. However, considering Leigh Jason made it, it remains a good surprise. Western specialists have done far worse over the years. Try to watch it anyway.
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