No Name on the Bullet (1959)

Audie Murphy is the only name that I recognized in this movie, but that’s the fault ONLY my terrible old movie knowledge.

Many of the actors were instantly recognizable soon as I saw them from countless other movies. I just didn’t know their names.

• Audie Murphy – John Gant – the main guy and the “anti-hero”, everything revolves around him
• Charles Drake – the town doctor – the other main guy and the hero by 1950’s movie standards.
• Joan Evans – Good-looking woman betrothed to the doctor.
  She takes care of her invalid dad, a retired judge.
  I think she is the sexy young woman in a bunch of westerns because she sure looked familiar.
• R G Armstrong – the doc’s dad and the town blacksmith.
  He is VERY familiar.
  He always plays the big, burly trusty sidekick (except for the times he plays the big, burly bad guy :).
  • The movie signals early that Audie Murphy is actually a good guy being presented in a bad guy role by having this Armstrong fella stare him down suspiciously, then decide to shake his hand.

This movie came out when I was 12 years old. It would have been a prime candidate for me to watch in the movie theater after school waiting for mom to be done with work. I wish I could say I remembered it.

The movie has (to me) a strong 50’s vibe to it. The 50’s was all about secrets (Atomic bomb secrets!) and being suspicious of the person next to you (Are you the Russian spy?)

Audie Murphy rides into town …

… and takes a room at the hotel. As soon as he says his name “John Gant”, half the town freaks out because “everybody knows” that John Gant only goes comes to a town to kill someone.

Again, this is a 50’s movie, so everyone has secrets!
All the upstanding pillars of the community have a guilty conscience about something, so they are all SURE he’s there to kill them. … Hilarity ensues …. very grim hilarity, some folks jump to conclusions that are fatal to their neighbors..

One townsperson gets gunned down at work and another kills himself in his office just because Gant is in their town taking a room in the hotel and drinking coffee in the hotel lobby.

A cycle of guilty action -> guilty re-action burbles around the community for most of the middle of the movie, until towards the end we settle on the unlikeliest candidate – the most upright community pillar of them all, the wheelchair-ridden judge whose sexy daughter is to marry the spotlessly perfect doctor. Here’s how it unfolds:

• The judge reads a letter. He shows visible distress then locks it way in a box.
• His daughter notices and wonders what THAT was about??
  • So when the judge goes to town, she sneaks in, unlocks the box and reads the letter.
• She has strong emotions.
• Turns out her dad, the Judge did something shady many years ago.
  • He pissed off powerful people back east, and they have finally caught up to him.
    • She is sure he’s Gant’s target.
      • Unlike everyone else who has thought that, she turns out to be correct!
• She rides into town, and goes to Gant’s room with a gun to try to dissuade him …
  • … and if that fails, to shoot him!
• She fails to either, because Gant easily disarms her.
• They dialog about it for a while.
  • Gant ends the conversation by guaranteeing the judge will be pissed off enough to fight him by ripping half of her blouse off!
• We get to see she’s wearing sexy black bra that she presumably has been hiding under those pure white blouses all this time!
  • Hot stuff in the 50’s!
• Things are happening quickly now.
• Gant meets the judge outside his house.
• The Judge is indeed pissed off enough to try to kill him but he as he takes a shot at Gant, the shot goes skyward because he is collapsing of heart failure from all the excitement.
• The Doc and his dad the blacksmith arrive.
  • Doc heard a shot, and sees the body, so he naturally thinks Gant shot the judge.
  • He starts to throw the blacksmith’s hammer he happened to be carrying.
  • But Gant shoots him in his throwing arm before he can throw.
• Doc still has the hammer, and is such a manly man that he scores a perfect strike throwing it with his off arm, and shatters (it’s implied) Gant’s shootin’ arm.
• Somewhere in here, Doc’s dad the blacksmith hollers out that Grandpa, the Judge, died of a heart attack NOT a gun shot!
  • A little late to save Gant’s shootin arm, but maybe it’s time for a new career anway!
• Doc and Gant exchange pithy words of well-earned mutual respect as Gant rides off and the movie ends!

Pretty good movie.

When Gant ripped the lady’s shirt off I thought things were going to get tacky, but the movie saved itself.

It’s implied that Gant’s career is over, that his shoulder is shattered, but really he could just have a broken his arm and be back in business in six weeks.

I developed quite a liking for Gant over the course of the movie.
I think he’ll be OK either way.

Also, a little bit to my surprise I developed quite an attachment to this dumb movie! 🙂