Cheap Waltz across Texas (DVD) (Ernest Day) Price

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Customer Reviews of Waltz across Texas

A Midlander's Review
Being from Midland you might say I'm a homer and thus have a bias towards this movie. This movie was literally made at the very end of the oil boom period - in fact many of the companies' whose name appear through out the movie had gone out of business by the time it was released (that's how fast the bust hit). Terry Jastrow (who is from Midland) and his real life wife Anne Archer are great opposite each other on the screen while Mary Kay Place provides great commentary on life in Texas Oil Business.

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Good Texas movie
This is a good Texas movie. My dad was a Land Man (secures the leases to drill) so I grew up in this milieu. Two guys really can bring in a well if the pay is not too deep. All of the high school guys in oil country worked as roustabouts (general labor) or rig hands during the summers. When two guys get together, we discuss who missed what block or who jumped offside before we talk about women. Some of the minor characters in the movie have the names of real oil men and women. Good stuff.

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Man's Man Deflates Stuffy Scientist: It Must Be Love
Nicely observed portrait of West Texans at that moment when the traditional individualistic ways of the maverick wildcatters collided with the more sophisticated, play-it-safe high-tech future. Story comes wrapped up as a romance between real-life husband-and-wife Terry Jastrow and Anne Archer.
The film does a fine job of idealizing the nuts-and-bolts of small-scale oil drilling, and makes that far more interesting than you might expect. The plot is clichéd, and the characters stereotypical, but somehow, the excellent screenplay uses familiarity to anchor us quickly into place, and then spends its own leisurely time drawing in the details that bring the whole thing to quite pleasurable life.
It's familiar without being clichéd, fleshed-out without being eccentric, dignified without being pompous. Credit the writer, and the likeability of the cast, most particularly Jastrow, who is quite charming. Richard Farnsworth also stands out in a very effective early sequence.
That said, there's a fuzziness to the technicals, to the lighting and editing and such. A better director could have made "Waltz Across Texas" absolutely sparkle. As it is, though, it's still a small, slightly under-polished gem.