We’re looking back at six diverse films in which Murphy cowboyed up.
Audie Murphy was a real-life superstar long before he started making movies.
Indeed, the much-decorated World War II hero — born June 20, 1925 in Kingston, Texas — was such a larger-than-life figure that when Hollywood adapted his 1949 autobiography To Hell and Back for the big screen in 1955, the producers could find no one more suitable for the lead role than Murphy himself.
But he couldn’t be accurately billed as a “newcomer” when that biopic was released. By 1955, Murphy had already started amassing movie credits, starting with a minor supporting role as a newspaper copy boy in Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven (1948), and soon graduated to starring roles in such films as The Kid from Texas, the 1950 western that cast him as Billy the Kid; The Red Badge of Courage, director John Huston’s 1951 filmization of the classic Stephen Crane novel; and Destry, director George Marshall’s surprisingly faithful 1954 remake of his own Destry Rides Again (1939).
Murphy made more than 40 feature films before his tragic death in a 1971 plane crash at age 46. And no fewer than 33 of them were westerns. Thirty-four, actually, if you count his short-lived NBC 1961 TV series Whispering Smith.
To celebrate the centennial of Audie Murphy, we looked back at six of the gone-too-soon hero’s notable westerns.
Kansas Raiders (1950)
Murphy was well cast as a callow but lethal Jesse James in director Ray Enright’s Civil War era drama, which imagined Jesse, his brother Frank (Richard Long), siblings Cole (James Best) and James Younger (Dewey Martin), and Kit Dalton (Tony Curtis) joining the ranks of Quantrill’s Raiders, the notorious pro-Confederate guerilla outfit led by William Clarke Quantrill (Brian Donlevy). At first, Jesse more or less worships Quantrill, and warms to the latter’s dreams of expanding the Confederacy westward. But he is gradually disillusioned by the sheer savagery of Quantrill’s band, and breaks away from his one-time idol after the wanton slaughter of innocents during the infamous attack on Lawrence, Kansas. Be forewarned: For all its value as entertainment, Kansas Raiders takes quite a few liberties with historical facts, especially during a finale in which an unseen narrator makes the dubious claim: “And so into the pages of crime history rode five young men: Kit Dalton, Cole and Jim Younger, Frank and Jesse James, five whose warped lives were to be a heritage from their teacher, William Clarke Quantrill.”
The Duel at Silver Creek (1952)
Don Siegel, who would later attract greater attention with such films as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry and The Shootist, directed this well-crafted and briskly paced western — only 76 minutes long! — featuring Murphy as Luke Cromwell (a.k.a The Silver Kid), a young man who seeks revenge on the claim jumpers who killed his father. He makes a convincing and compelling transition from feckless poker player to obsessive life taker, making it easy to accept the appraisal of Marshal “Lightning” Tyrone (Stephen McNally) when the Silver Kid rides into his town: “He didn’t have the face of a killer, but he had the cold, steel look of one.” Funnily enough, McNally gets measurably more screen time, even after Tyrone deputizes Luke for backup after an injury cripples the lawman’s trigger finger. But there’s no mistaking who the real star is. Look for a young Lee Marvin as a tough customer with ambiguous intentions, and Faith Domergue as a seductive femme fatale in league with the claim jumpers.
Gunsmoke (1953)
Despite the title, this exciting shoot-’em-up, one of Murphy’s best, has nothing to do with the subsequent radio and TV shows of the same title, and everything to do with Red Kittridge (Murphy), a gunslinger who’s hired by a Montana town boss to, ahem, convince cattle rancher Dan Saxon (Paul Kelly) into signing over the deed to his spread. But Kittridge has a change of heart when Saxon tricks him into assuming ownership of his ranch in a rigged card game, and eventually convinces the gunslinger to lead a long-distance cattle drive. Along the way, he falls for Saxon’s feisty daughter Rita (Susan Cabot), even though she’s engaged to ranch foreman Curly Mather (future Bart Maverick Jack Kelly). Murphy sports a scruffier look in this western than he had in his earlier sagebrush sagas — which suits him, and the movie, very well. A nice touch: Cora (Mary Castle), a sultry saloon gal, gets to sing “The Boys in the Back Room,” a tune made famous by Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again, a 1939 seriocomic western Murphy would later remake as Destry.
Ride Clear of Diablo (1954)
It’s probably a good idea not to accept a part in any drinking game that requires you to take a shot each time some character make a condescending reference to the youthful appearance of Clay O’Mara, the railroad surveyor turned deputy sheriff played here by Murphy. A sample insult, uttered by a minor villain (Jack Elam) when O’Mara enters a saloon in search of notorious gunman Whitey Kincaid (Dan Duryea): “You lost, sonny?” But O’Mara thrives on being repeatedly underestimated as he hunts for the cattle rustlers who killed his father and brother. To aid in his pursuit, he asks to be deputized by Sheriff Tom Meredith (William Pulllen) without knowing that the crooked lawman is in league with the rustlers. To cover his tracks, Meredith sends O’Mara out on dangerous assignments — like arresting Kincaid — where he hopes the untested deputy will get killed. But O’Mara proves to be frustratingly resilient, earning the respect, and occasional assistance, of the unreliable Kincaid. With his cackling laugh and shifting mood swings, Duryea steals every scene that isn’t bolted to the floor as O’Mara’s frenemy. (More than once, he stands aside to enjoy the “entertainment” of O’Mara’s face-offs with bad guys.) Still, Murphy holds his own by emphasizing O’Mara’s decency and self-assurance. When someone questions why O’Mara is setting out alone to pursue a horse thief, he matter-of-factly replies, “He only stole one horse, didn’t he?”
Ride a Crooked Trail (1958)
After the marshal on his trail accidentally dies after plunging off a cliff, the colorfully named outlaw Joe Maybe (Murphy) assumes the lawman’s identity, and winds up forced to play the role for real by Judge Kyle (Walter Matthau — yes, that Walter Matthau), an overbearing jurist who needs someone to protect and serve his community as the railroad comes to his small town. Complications arise when Joe’s his former sweetie Tessa (Gia Scala) arrives on the scene to rendezvous with her current lover, bandit leader Sam Teeler (Henry Silva), who plans to rob the local bank with his gang. Joe convinces Tessa to pose as his wife to help him continue his masquerade. But he starts to seriously reconsider his life choices as he becomes accustomed to being on the right side of the law, and deeply admired by Judge Kyle’s impressionable young ward Jimmy (Eddie Little). Ride a Crooked Trail is a hugely entertaining western spiced with humorous touches provided by Murphy and Scala, whose quarrelsome relationship gradually evolves into something much sweeter, and Matthau, amusingly (over)playing Judge Kyle as benign tyrant who encourage Joe to always shoot first and ask questions later, if ever.
No Name on the Bullet (1959)
Many devoted fans and demanding critics have praised No Name on the Bullet as the very best western on Murphy’s resume, and we’re certainly not going to disagree. In an audacious break from playing heroes (or antiheroes), he’s totally convincing and more than a tad chilling as cold-blood killer John Gant, a hired gun whose fearsome reputation causes almost all of the locals in Lordsburg to panic when he rides into town with an unknown agenda. Young doctor Luke Canfield (Charles Drake) is the only person who’s friendly to the unwelcome outsider. Just about everyone else is terrified of the guy, even as he does nothing more menacing than bide his time while drinking coffee in a main street saloon. More than a few fear, for various reasons, that they’re his next target. (One fellow is so scared, he actually commits suicide; another has to get staggeringly drunk to attempt a showdown, only to turn tail before the soft-spoken killer even lifts his hands from a tabletop.) Director Jack Arnold and scripter Gene L. Coon generate maximum suspense before the surprise reveal of Gant’s intended victim. And there’s something at once dramatically satisfying and affecting melancholy about the ending, which offers an ironic quietus to Gant’s reign of terror.
