Terrible acting
Terrible!
Sterling Hayden never was very good.
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MovieChat Forums > Terror in a Texas Town (1958) Discussion > Terrible acting
Sterling was a good actor. But they shouldn't have had him with that accent here. He should have been used better by Hollywood even though he did make some gems such as The Killing, The Asphalt Jungle and Dr. Strangelove. Too many times he was defeated by terrible script writing and poor direction.
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I thought Sterling Hayden was really good in this movie and I don't understand why the earlier poster objected to his Swedish accent. The movie makes clear that he has been at sea for many years and has only just arrived in the United States. Why would he not have his native accent?
shareIt's that his accent is all over the place. Sometimes there isn't any accent at all; and all throughout the performance the tone of his voice sounds different.
He's okay in the movie. The plot is very standard stuff, there isn't much to make it stand out. And there are a couple other elements that drag this picture down into the land of the mediocre.
The music is the primary culprit. All through the picture there's one inappropriate piece of music after another. It amazed me how poorly the music fails to match the tone of the scene it's supporting. It got to the point that I was laughing, and I'm pretty sure this film is not meant to be a comedy.
And the villains are just too poorly drawn. And the main scenario itself is not thought out well enough to be genuinely compelling. These problems weigh down the picture. It's not a film I'd consider essential by any means.
I love Hayden. Just not in this picture.
I know plenty of Swedes with less accent (in speaking English) than Hayden used here. I'm not saying he's Max von Sydow, but it's perfectly fine.
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Sterling Hayden never was very good.
Maybe you need to see more movies with Hayden.
Asphalt Jungle, Dr. Strangelove, Godfather.
Most actors would kill for that resume and those performances.
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Thanks for the insightful analysis, OP. The thing is though that Hayden (who tended to make a serious mark on most films he was in) is excellent as the stubborn Swede, radiating strong-willed conviction as well as Ned Young as the archetypal gunslinger from hell and Cabot as the smooth, cackling fat cat of a tycoon. Altogether an excellent minimalist noir, wonderfully shot by Lewis.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
At his best, Hayden was good, never great, but here he is at least as good as the rest of the cast.......awful! The music, dialog, fight scenes, acting and directing are all embarrassingly bad, made by a bunch of northeastern lefties, who knew nothing about making westerns. It's about as exciting as watching the grass grow.
shareI thought the acting was pretty good.
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