Review of No Name on the Bullet

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!