First Christian Western

Evangelist Billy Graham, who leads revival meetings on radio and television, has found a new medium: the movies. At a prayer-meeting premiere (pronounced "premeer") in Hollywood Bowl this week, he presented a movie entitled Mr. Texas. Evangelist Graham calls it "the first Christian Western."

Mr. Texas gets its 65-minute message across without gunplay. The hero, a rancher named Jim Tyler, is a pleasure-loving lad, overfond of broncho-riding, cattle, land and oil. His sister Kay has been converted at a Billy Graham prayer meeting, and she tries to get Jim to see the light. It's no use, until he gets a bad spill from a broncho and has to go to the hospital.

When Cliff Barrows, Billy Graham's song leader, visits the hospital, Rancher Jim sullenly accepts a copy of the Gospel of John. Alone, he does some thinking. Next Sunday, Sister Kay tunes in the Billy Graham hour on the hospital radio. Jim Tyler listens, and comes to a decision. "All my life," he drawls in the climactic scene, "I bin ridin' the wrong trail. I'm turnin' back. I'm goin' God's way--I think it's goin' to be a wonderful ride."

The real star of Mr. Texas is Billy Graham. The most effective sequences are those of his mile-a-minute preaching, filmed last February and March at Fort Worth's Will Rogers Coliseum. As a movie, Mr. Texas is amateurish. But it cost only $35,000. Evangelist Graham concedes: "It's no DeMille, but then DeMille takes $35,000 to warm up his lights."

Graham expects to do some touring with the film, following it with a message of his own inviting his listeners to come forward and accept Christ. "It'll be the same scene they have seen in the movie," he says, "only this time they themselves will get a chance to act in it."

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