In The Big Country (1958) and Terror in a Texas Town (1958), directors William Wyler and Joseph H. Lewis use retired seamen to explore the myth of the West. As Will Wright has observed in Six Guns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western, “the Western, like any myth, stands between individual human consciousness and society” (2). Using a character such as the retired and successful sea captain played by Gregory Peck in The Big Country or the recently retired Norwegian harpooner George (Sterling Hayden) in Terror in a Texas Town, I suggest, allows for an interrogation of political history at a local level. These characters also remind audiences of a wider world market for goods and, interestingly, are far more open to learning from diverse members of the community. These retired seamen and their interactions in their new surroundings reflect a more historically authentic West, one which was far more ethnically diverse than otherwise suggested by earlier Western films. Although The Big Country benefits from a larger budget, Terror in a Texas Town draws on many of the same motifs that celebrate the values of hard work, tenacity, and good manners. Drawing upon the works of recent critics writing about Western films I examine how the figure of the retired seaman works to unite the insular world of the small town with the larger world outside, even while he himself never fully succeeds in becoming a part of either social structure during his time on screen.
About the presenterRebekah Greene
Dr. Rebekah Greene (Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, 2016) is a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow in the Writing and Communication Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she teaches Technical Communication and serves as Assessment Coordinator. Her research interests include Victorian studies, adventure fiction, material culture studies, and film.