Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Tex

Prior to the 1950s, teenagers didn’t really exist as a separate and unique demographic. Once childhood ended, you became an adult and that was that. But the baby boomers and the prosperity of the post-war era changed that, creating a new, in-between group with their own interests, concerns and, perhaps most crucially, buying power. So it makes sense that the genre we know today as Young Adult Fiction emerged around the same time.

Of course, books about young people had been around for generations. Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens and countless others had all written books about and aimed at younger readers, many of which had become Disney films themselves. But the new breed of YA fiction was different. It explicitly addressed issues facing teenagers coming of age, including feelings of alienation, peer pressure and the transition into adult concerns like sex, drugs and alcohol. These books had more in common with J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, arguably the template for the modern YA novel despite being marketed toward adults, than with Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

The book that really kicked off the modern YA renaissance was S.E. Hinton’s 1967 debut The Outsiders. Written when Hinton was a junior in high school and published when she was just 18, The Outsiders became a touchstone for millions of teenagers (her publisher advised her to go by her initials to smokescreen the fact that a young woman was the author). She followed it up with three more novels aimed at the same audience: That Was Then, This Is Now, Rumble Fish, and Tex.

Hinton’s novels weren’t just popular, they were practically a rite of passage. By the time I hit junior high in the early 1980s, seemingly everybody my age with a library card went through an S.E. Hinton phase, devouring her entire back catalog. So it’s hardly surprising that Hollywood would eventually adapt them to film. It’s a little surprising that all four of her books were released as movies within just a few years of each other and shared several cast members. And it’s definitely surprising that the first one out the gate was released by Walt Disney, a studio notorious for jumping on trends long after they’ve hit their peak.

Like Tron and Midnight Madness, the impetus to make Tex came from outside the studio. Tim Hunter was a screenwriter with aspirations toward directing. His first produced script, the excellent 1979 teen drama Over The Edge, had been a critical success. Hunter discovered Hinton’s work on the set of that film and adapted the novel with his writing partner at the time, Charlie Haas (who would go on to write the scripts for Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2 and Matinee). Hunter brought the project to Disney with the caveat that he be allowed to direct. The studio was rolling the dice on a lot of first-time directors at the time and the budget for Tex would be low enough that it didn’t constitute a huge risk.

At first, Hinton had her doubts about bringing Tex and Mason McCormick to the home of Dexter Riley and Merlin Jones. But Disney Vice President Tom Wilhite traveled to her home state of Oklahoma to convince her that the studio planned to take her novel seriously. Disney still desperately needed to change its image and proving they were capable of adapting Hinton’s grounded, realistic story would be a big step in the right direction. Disney’s usual bait, a trip to the Magic Kingdom, didn’t impress Hinton all that much. But when Wilhite promised that her horse, Toyota, could star as Tex’s beloved horse, Rowdy, she was sold.

Hunter already knew what actor he wanted to costar alongside Toyota. Over The Edge marked the film debut of a young actor named Matt Dillon. Since then, he’d appeared in the films My Bodyguard and Little Darlings. He was also a fan of S.E. Hinton, although he, like a lot of people, had assumed she was a man. Hinton was skeptical of Dillon at first, fearing that the very New York actor wouldn’t be believable as a teen from rural Oklahoma. But he quickly won her over and the pair formed a little mutual admiration society. Soon after Tex, Hinton persuaded Francis Ford Coppola to cast Dillon in his adaptation of The Outsiders. Coppola liked him so much that he immediately used him again in Rumble Fish.

To play Tex’s protective older brother, Mason, Hunter tapped Jim Metzler, a discovery from Arthur Penn’s 1981 drama Four Friends. Metzler had been a minor league baseball player and a sports journalist before turning to acting. He’d actually made his screen debut in Lloyd Kaufman’s T&A softball comedy Squeeze Play!, making him, like me, a Troma Team alumnus. At 31, Metzler was a bit old to play a high school senior. But his earnest performance was strong enough to get him a Golden Globe nomination.

Two more actors on the verge of stardom make early appearances in Tex as members of the well-to-do Collins family. Meg Tilly costars as Tex’s girlfriend, Jamie Collins. Tilly had only racked up a handful of appearances in TV and movies prior to Tex and she was about a year away from her breakout role as the youngest member of the ensemble cast of The Big Chill. Jamie’s brother, Johnny, was played by Emilio Estevez. Estevez was also a Hinton fan. He’d go on to appear in The Outsiders and would later star in and write the screenplay for Hinton’s That Was Then…This Is Now, a book that’s actually connected to Tex in the shared Hinton-Verse.

While Tex, like Night Crossing before it, conceals its Disney connection until the end credits (opting instead for the more neutral Buena Vista title card up front), Hunter opens the film with shots of Tex happily riding Rowdy before school. This scene wouldn’t have been out of place in any of Disney’s countless boy-and-his-animal pictures of the past thirty years, from Old Yeller to Ride A Wild Pony. But this time, it’s a bit of misdirection as we soon find out that Tex and Mason are living on their own, forced to fend for themselves after the death of their mother and saddled with an absentee father who disappears for months at a time on the rodeo circuit. They’re getting by but barely and Mason seems to be the only person who realizes just how dire their situation is.

To help put food on the table, Mason sells the horses while Tex is away at school. Needless to say, this does not go over well. The boys get into a knock-down drag-out fight, culminating with Tex heading out on a futile quest to track the horses down. Later on, Mason finally brings Tex to Rowdy’s new owner but the reunion doesn’t follow the standard Disney playbook. Rowdy has bonded with his new rider, a young girl practicing dressage, and her family refuses to sell the animal back. Tex is forced to walk away and admit that his beloved horse is better off without him.

Mason isn’t just struggling to take care of his brother. He’s trying to graduate from high school himself and hopes to attend college on a basketball scholarship. But he understands that pursuing his own dreams will leave Tex on his own. He’s not willing to do that but he’s also not ready to completely give up on his own plans, either. In Hinton’s work, every decision has a price and nothing is ever completely cut and dried.

Heading home from school, Tex pulls over to pick up a hitchhiker (Željko Ivanek in one of his first films). The hitchhiker pulls a gun on Mason and orders Tex to keep driving and avoid calling attention to himself. When Tex spots a police cruiser in the rearview, he intentionally crashes the truck. The hitchhiker flees and is shot dead by the cops.

In Hinton’s book, the hitchhiker is revealed to be Mark Jennings, the main character from That Was Then, This Is Now, played by Emilio Estevez in his 1985 movie adaptation. Hunter’s movie can’t make that association but does drop Mark’s name as an Easter egg for Hinton fans. Mark recently escaped from prison, so Tex and Mason are interviewed on the local news about their role in bringing him to justice.

One of the folks who happened to catch the news is none other than the boys’ long-absent father (played by Clint Eastwood favorite Bill McKinney). Pops’ luck on the rodeo circuit has long since run out and seeing his sons on TV sends him home, since he has nothing better to do. Tex is thrilled but Mason has serious doubts about how long Pops intends to stick around.

Meanwhile, Tex continues to hang out with the rich Collins kids, trying to score with Jamie and getting into trouble with Johnny. None of this endears the McCormicks to the Collins’ father, Cole (beloved character actor Ben Johnson, not seen in this column since Ten Who Dared all the way back in 1960). Cole knows all that he cares to about the McCormick family and is convinced that associating with them will drag his kids down to their level.

One afternoon, Tex and Johnny almost get expelled after loading up the machines in the typing class with rolls of caps (S.E. Hinton herself makes a cameo as the typing teacher). Pops McCormick turns up at school, unconcerned about what he sees as a harmless (and fairly hilarious) prank. But Mason calls him out for his lax parenting, inadvertently revealing to Tex that Pops isn’t really his father.

Tex runs off and falls in with Lem Peters (Phillip Brock), a friend of Mason’s who dropped out of school and moved to Tulsa after getting his girlfriend pregnant. Lem asks Tex to accompany him on a drug deal. But the deal goes sideways and Tex ends up being shot. He manages to escape the apartment and calls Jamie from a pay phone. He’s able to describe his surroundings well enough for Jamie to send help.

While Tex recuperates in the hospital, he reconciles things with Pop, who tells the truth about his biological father. Realizing that he’s been holding Mason back, he fills out the college application for him, securing him a full ride in the fall. With his brother making plans for the future, Tex begins working on a ranch, allowing him to be around horses without the financial burden of actually owning them.

Like most slice-of-life films, Tex is inherently episodic. At times, it can feel like not a lot is happening. But Hunter establishes a bittersweet tone that helps carry the film a long way. He also gets terrific performances from his young cast, especially Matt Dillon. Dillon makes Tex a rich, complex character. You can chart real growth in him, which is not something you can say about a lot of so-called “coming-of-age” films. It’s clear that this is a vitally important period in Tex’s life, even when some of the moments seem mundane or ordinary. Tex would be considered a nuanced film by any standard. But coming from Disney when it did, it really represented a quantum leap forward in their approach.

Unfortunately, that evolution did not translate to success at the box office. Disney released Tex on July 30, 1982. Most critics loved it and expressed genuine surprise that it came from Disney. But it barely made a ripple with audiences. It grossed a modest amount, essentially making its money back. But the studio simply had no idea how to market a movie like Tex yet. As far as Disney was concerned, S.E. Hinton’s target audience might just as well have been from another planet.

S.E. Hinton, of course, would be just fine. In 1983, Coppola’s version of The Outsiders would become a modest hit. It has gone on to cast a much larger shadow, thanks in no small part to its cast of future stars including Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe and Ralph Macchio in addition to Dillon and Estevez. Tim Hunter would also go on to direct another teen-oriented film that has had a larger cultural footprint. The pitch-black drama River’s Edge caused a stir upon its release in 1986 and has emerged as a cult classic in the years since.

But it’s unfortunate that these later films have overshadowed Disney’s Tex. It’s undeniably a quieter, more low-key movie. But it taps into something very real and universal that still resonates forty years later. Even now, Tex feels like a cult movie waiting to be discovered. In 1982, however, it accomplished what it set out to do, proving that Disney could indeed make a movie for young adults with depth and substance. It’s too bad that most of us didn’t notice at the time.

VERDICT: Disney Plus

Like this post? Help support Disney Plus-Or-Minus and Jahnke’s Electric Theatre on Ko-fi!