The Houston Story

“I’m the big boy now. Nobody’s gonna get me out.” Director William Castle had an uneven relationship with film noir, but The Houston Story is a perfectly respectable programmer that presents action, suspense, and romance against an unusual backdrop: the Texas oil industry. Gene Barry plays Frank Duncan, an ambitious oil driller in Galveston who enacts a money-making scheme that involves siphoning the black gold from a neighboring oil field and selling it as his own. To fund the enterprise, Duncan makes nice with hot blonde Zoe Crane (Barbara Hale), a nightclub singer who leads Duncan to Paul Atlas (Edward Arnold), the head of a crime syndicate who agrees to go in with Duncan but, as he confides to sidekick Gordon Shay (Paul Richards), plans to double-cross the naïve driller. Jeanne Cooper plays struggling café owner Madge, the woman who loves Duncan unconditionally and will later aid his getaway from the cops and gangsters in hot pursuit. As the action and violence ramp up, especially in the second half, so do the noir visuals, Freulich’s cinematography using shadows, framing, and reflections to produce a handful of compositions that exceed low-budget expectations. Some will consider the uninspired (and uncredited) score a weak spot, more fitting for a 1960’s TV cop show.