Watch No Name on the Bullet For Free

Pretty Good

Fresh and Exciting

best movie i've ever seen.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Audie Murphy, the ex-WWII hero, also the most decorated hero of that same global war, deviates from the norm in this Universal-International western; he is usually a tough straight guy, but here he is a mean, cold, feared bounty hunter, despite the fact that he is his boyish-looking self. The Old West town, Lordsburg, though rough-looking has appeal because of the color of the movie. As for the story, just the title would loosely indicate that it is a mystery, since everybody in this small town wants to know who the victim is that this paid killer John Gant (Murphy)is there to kill. As in most of Murphy's westerns, the action is tense all the way from beginning to end. Warren Stevens, Karl Swenson, and Whit Bissell are very dramatic in their roles as not-so-innocent men. Charles Wells (there mainly for decorative purposes) is rather comical as the hotel clerk. Willie Bouchey fit well into the role as the aging sheriff. Joan Evans was a very lovely lady who was surprisingly brave. Charles Drake (Murphy's friend offstage) acts well the part of the local physician who is probably the bravest and finest citizen of Lordsburg. Again, the action is tense, practically all the way through,and the climax is very surprising. Though this is,again, an anomaly from the decent-charactered person Murphy portrays, the versatile actor plays his part well. An underrated-yet-great western.

"Buck, he's here! He's right here in town," says the out-of breath barkeep who just ran over from the town hotel to the sheriff's office. "Who's he talking' about? Who's Gant?" asks Harold Miller, the deputy sheriff. "You mean you really don't know?" says the barkeep. "I asked, didn't I?" "He's a killer," says Sheriff Buck Hastings. "So what? We've had some pretty good ones. We've been able to handle 'em." "Oh, no," says the sheriff. "A gunman is one thing. Gant's another." John Gant (Audie Murphy) is a paid assassin, cool, quick, deadly and smart. He's given the name of his target and collects his fee, then sets out for a bit of lawful murdering. He arrives in a town, takes a room for a few days, scouts out his victim's weaknesses, and then goads the man into drawing on him. Gant has gunned down quite a few with this technique and has never been arrested. His services come high. Now John Gant has ridden into the dusty town of Lordsburg, taken a room at the local hotel, and is biding his time. Every one in town knows Gant is going to kill someone, but no one knows who. It's not long before venality, cowardice, suspicion and fear consume some of Lordsburg's leading citizens. Quite a few show that they wear a coating of moral slime. Their fear is justified by everything from double dealing, mine stealing and wife theft. John Gant is a paid assassin, but he also seems to be the dark side of humanity's conscience. Just his presence causes suicide, vigilantism and murderous gunfights between factions in the town. Gant just looks on. The one man in town who speaks for decency is the town doc, Luke Canfield (Charles Drake). Canfield is a dedicated young medical man, serious about healing, engaged to the daughter of a retired, consumptive, dying judge. Gant and Canfield find each other interesting. Canfield is intrigued by Gant's intelligence. He finds it difficult to believe Gant is nothing but a paid killer. Gant seems drawn to Canfield's honesty. They talk a little. They enjoy a game of chess. Canfield sees himself as a healer of men. Gant sees himself as a healer of problems. It can't last. We might think it's easy to figure out Gant's intended victim; we just have to remember all the clichés of B movies. We'd be wrong. No Name on the Bullet is an efficient B western, stuffed full with the familiar faces of B movie character actors. The acting is standard B movie quality, not bad but predictable. What makes the movie stand out as something other than just a time killer is that the plot is more intriguing than you'd expect. Essentially, one passive gunman raises havoc among the leading citizens as they unmask their own flawed motives and actions. This is accomplished within an efficient use of just 77 minutes. The movie doesn't dawdle. And then there is Audie Murphy, playing a man who finds it easy to justify, for pay, bringing death a little earlier than expected to men who mostly deserve what he deals them. Murphy was no great shakes as an actor, and he learned his craft while doing it. Partly because of his extraordinary combat war record, his struggles with what now we call Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, his early hardscrabble life and being responsible for his younger brothers and sisters, and his modesty, I've always respected the man. He wasn't a big guy, he had a baby face that sometimes helped and sometimes didn't. He applied himself to the job at hand. He had sufficient screen presence to build himself into an above-the-title and popular lead actor. Most of his movies, in my opinion, are standard Hollywood fodder. In some circumstances, however, he could deliver unusually effective performances. He's at his best, in my opinion, in The Red Badge of Courage(1951), The Quiet American (1958) and The Unforgiven (1960). All three movies are flawed, with The Quiet American being awful (and a cynical and corrupt adaptation of Graham Greene's novel) and The Unforgiven being awfully long, but Murphy is just fine. I think No Name on the Bullet ranks among these in terms of Murphy's performance.

This mature, psychological Western was the first feature film director Jack Arnold made after that exceptional run of Sci-Fi movies (made during the genre's heyday of the 1950s) for which he is deservedly best-known. Diminutive real-life war hero Audie Murphy atypically stars as a black-clad notorious hired killer whose appearance in a sleepy Western hamlet instills fear in several of its supposedly respectable citizens who each believe that their own past has come back to haunt them. Murphy lazes about town, quietly downing mug after mug of coffee in the saloon and indulging in the occasional game of chess with friendly town doctor-veterinarian Charles Drake. He never lets on whom he has come for (which is a given to everyone but Drake) but lets the increasingly paranoid townspeople unravel in front of him and, in some cases, settle their age-old disputes among themselves. The final revelation that he had actually been hired to eliminate the least likely candidate (i.e. the most respectable and most harmless citizen – an old wheelchair-bound Judge) and that the latter, unbeknownst to Murphy, only has six months to live anyhow, packs a real ironical wallop. Interestingly, Murphy had so far been able to get away with 23 killings because he always managed to coerce his victims into drawing their guns on him first; in this case, he contrives to molest the Judge's daughter in his hotel room and tell him about it afterwards! The cast also includes R. G. Armstrong (as Drake's blacksmith father), Whit Bissell (as a corrupt banker), Warren Stevens (who gets all liquored up to face Murphy but nothing comes of their meeting), Virginia Grey (as Stevens' contemptuous lover), Jerry Paris (as the Sheriff's reluctant deputy) and Karl Swenson (as Bissell's tough business partner). A terse, offbeat Western that concludes in a unique confrontation between Murphy and Drake (who happens to be engaged to the Judge's daughter) where the former is disarmed and disabled by a gavel thrown at his right arm; incidentally, this unusual object had featured prominently in a scene at the beginning of the movie – at which point, my father (who was watching the film with me) proceeded to reveal the ending he recalled from an almost 50-year old theatrical screening!

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.