Als der Auftragskiller John Gant nach Lordsburg reitet, werden die Einwohner der Stadt paranoid, denn jeder führende Bürger hat Feinde, die die Dienste eines Profikillers für ihre persönlich... Alles lesenAls der Auftragskiller John Gant nach Lordsburg reitet, werden die Einwohner der Stadt paranoid, denn jeder führende Bürger hat Feinde, die die Dienste eines Profikillers für ihre persönliche Rache nutzen könnten.Als der Auftragskiller John Gant nach Lordsburg reitet, werden die Einwohner der Stadt paranoid, denn jeder führende Bürger hat Feinde, die die Dienste eines Profikillers für ihre persönliche Rache nutzen könnten.
- Hugo Mott
- (as Jim Hyland)
- Barfly
- (Nicht genannt)
- Farmer's Wife
- (Nicht genannt)
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There is a lot of philosophy about Justice, ethics, the rights of one over the many.
Audie Murphy is not perfect in the role (he is known for playing good guys, he is short, and he has the face of a 16 year old) but he does a pretty convincing job.
Overall, a really interesting western, and probably my favorite Audie Murphy flick.
John Gant (Murphy) a hired killer, rides into town one day and is soon recognized by the towns people. His modus operandi has preceded him. It seems that he rides into a town, checks into a hotel and then just sits around for days taking stock of the situation and sizing up his next victim, who is known only to him. He then goads his victim into a fight and shoots him down in self defence.
With Gant's arrival several townsfolk begin to get nervous, each believing that they are his intended victim. It seems many of the good citizens have skeletons in their respective closets. Is it the respected town doctor, Luke Canfield (Charles Drake), his father Asa the blacksmith (R. G. Armstrong), gambler Reeger (Simon Scott), "respected businessmen" Stricker (Karl Swenson) and Pierce (Whit Bissell), miner Ben Chafee (John Alderson) or Lou Fraden (Warren Stevens), who has run off with another man's wife (Virginia Grey)?
Well, each begins to think that the other is trying to have him/her killed and they begin to fight among themselves. Only the sheriff (Willis Bouchey) has the courage to stand up to Gant, but Gant shoots his gun hand in a showdown. Through it all Dr. Canfield along with his fiance Anne Benson (Joan Evans) and her terminally ill and crippled father, retired Judge Benson (Edgar Stehlt) try to make sense of it all. Canfield comes to earn Gant's respect for his courage in trying to prevent any violence. The suspense builds, some die until we learn that Gant's victim is........
Normally when you watch an Audie Murphy western, you would expect him to abandon his intended victim and ride away. Not so here. The cold and calculated manner in which he goads his victim into a fight leaves no question that Gant is all bad. Murphy pulls it off. He was gradually becoming a better actor with each film. His performance as Gant is downright chilling. He would follow that up with another good performance in "Unforgiven" a big budget western with Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn the following year.
Universal always populated the Murphy westerns with a cast of seasoned veterans. This film is no exception. Drake appeared in many of Murphy's films on both sides of the law. He gets to be the hero in this one. Stevens as the gutless wife stealer stands out as does Grey as his distraught wife who sees that she has made a big mistake. The ever reliable Bouchey is excellent as the sheriff who is powerless to stop Gant. Stehlt is good as the terminally ill judge and Evans makes an attractive heroine. In fact, there's not a single weakness in the entire cast. Sharp eyed western lovers will spot Bob Steele (mostly from the back) in the card playing sequence.
Great stuff.
Without a top-heavy cast, the story itself also gains focus, and I think the story of No Name on the Bullet is fascinating. What happens when a notorious contract killer rides into town and...does absolutely nothing?
The one star of the movie, Audie Murphy, plays the gunman. I love Murphy, one of Hollywood's misspent talents. Does this also apply to the the character actors I refer to above? Not really.
Character players, though quite talented, rarely attain stardom - Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Claude Rains are notable exceptions - not through neglect or misuse but by some limitation of range or persona. Audie Murphy's talent was misspent because, though obvious, it was never developed, either by studios, who, myopically, only wanted to exploit his war hero status as a box office draw, or directors who, in Murphy's career, were usually "line directors," good for getting a movie in the can on time and on budget rather than for getting great performances out their players.
Which brings me to director Jack Arnold, who does a journeyman's job, but who I believe is the cause for what another reviewer wrongheadedly calls Murphy's shortcomings. Stilted lines and studied movement are the results of "hands-off" direction. This is OK for the character parts, where skilled players in simple roles don't need much direction, but not for lead roles. Watching Murphy I'm reminded of another sadly underdeveloped star, Alan Ladd, whose talents always shone under a great director, but who didn't get those directors consistently enough, in my opinion, to fulfill his promise. Coincidentally, both Murphy and Ladd died prematurely. Perhaps not coincidentally, both had drinking problems. I wonder if they might have been experiencing similar frustrations.
Since No Name on the Bullet contains complex secondary parts, it's fortunate, that the players cast for these parts are outstanding, so the characters are interesting. Unfortunately, the budget constraints force the runtime of the film to be far too short. The result is a number of unresolved character studies. I want to know more about the blacksmith, the ex-flame and the judge - and more about the gunfighter. I'd also like to see more denouement. The main plot ends too abruptly, as if the producers were saying, "That's all we can afford to give you, Folks." That said, I wouldn't call the ending dumb, again as the wrongheaded reviewer cited above asserts, just shortchanged.
Returning to my opening thesis, that watching a cast of talented character players carry a movie is a special treat, I highly recommend this little gem of a Western.
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- WissenswertesR. G. Armstrong who plays Charles Drake's father was only 5 months older than him.
- PatzerWhen Gant is playing chess, he castles. Castling involves moving the Rook and the King, but he moves the Rook and the Queen.
- Zitate
John Gant: Take two men. Say they have robbed and lied, and have never paid. The man whom one of them has robbed comes to me and says, "Kill that man who's robbed me." And I kill him. The other man becomes ill and would die, except for a physician who returns him to health to rob and lie again. Who's the villain in this piece? Me or the physician?
- VerbindungenReferenced in 77-Sunset-Strip: Penthouse on Skid Row (1962)
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- Laufzeit1 Stunde 17 Minuten
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- 2.35 : 1