No Name on the Bullet

When hired killer Audie Murphy rides into town, everyone gets nervous. Not so much because he's a killer, but because they all have something to hide. This is a wonderfully suspenseful, very low budget western, directed by Jack Arnold, from near the end of Murphy's period as Universal-International's resident cowboy star. His filmography may not be so distinguished as that of Gary Cooper or John Wayne, but it's an awful lot better than many have made it out to be. This fine-tuned gem is a heck of a lot better than North To Alaska.

Audie's best Western. He made many great ones, but this stands above all. Everyone wonders why notorious hired gun John Gant's in town, but he ain't sayin'. Charles Drake befriends him. Edgar Stehli tries to kill him. Warren Stevens is afraid of him. Joan Evans yells at him. Philophical, incisive and suspenseful, with Audie's superbly laconic perf leading a strong cast, this exercise in guilt and paranoia is one of the unknown gems of the 1950s. My #4 film of '59. "Everything comes to a finish."

Hired killer Audie Murphy follows a pattern of goading his target into taking the first shot, allowing himself to get off Scott free. At a stop-off in a small town, the well known Murphy arouses the paranoia of several key citizens, with each man believing he may be the next to die. The idea of a lurking gunman and his mystery target exposing the festering guilt and hypocrisy of a seemingly ordinary town is a good one and there's some really good scenes here. However, it's undone a bit by some disappointingly ordinary writing and some problems with the film's pace (even at a short seventy-seven minutes). It should have been more hard-boiled and suspenseful than it ultimately turned out to be. Still, it's not too bad. Audie Muphy is always fun to watch and the film's competently made. Co-star R.G. Armstrong must be some kind of vampire, as he looks about the same at ninety plus years old, that he did when he was in his forties!

One of Audie Murphy's two best Westerns, along with "Duel at Silver Creek." Audie departs from his usual role as a Good Guy, to play a part that is more bad than good, but has admirable qualities as well (honesty & responsibility chief among them). He underplays this role, which is one of the reasons that the movie works so well. It has little action for a B Western, but the action comes in a surprisingly violent sequence. The plot avoids many of the usual Western clichés, instead providing thought provoking dialog. Why do the TV channels repeatedly show Audie's mediocre movies & avoid showing his best? I rate it 8/10.

When hired killer Audie Murphy rides into town, everyone gets nervous. Not so much because he's a killer, but because they all have something to hide. This is a wonderfully suspenseful, very low budget western, directed by Jack Arnold, from near the end of Murphy's period as Universal-International's resident cowboy star. His filmography may not be so distinguished as that of Gary Cooper or John Wayne, but it's an awful lot better than many have made it out to be. This fine-tuned gem is a heck of a lot better than North To Alaska.

Why this got the good reviews it did in the books I read, is a mystery. It's basically a "one- angle" story in which a hired killer enters a town and the whole place goes wildly paranoid wondering who is going to be the man's victim. That sounds fairly interesting but it didn't play that way, getting tiresome very quickly. Then again, some people like this kind of suspense-but nothing-happens type of story, sort of like the popular "High Noon." Audie Murphy ("John Gant") is interesting to watch as the cool-attitude killer but I couldn't much else to get excited about here. The rest of the cast combined can't equal Murphy's effort here. This is more of a melodrama than a western, which may suit a lot of people, but I was looking for a good "western," which usually means a little more action than this dull film.