Superhero-struck young filmgoers today could be better aware of the remarkable background of Audie Murphy, a serviceable star largely in westerns, with the distinction of being the most decorated American soldier of WWII. Of sharecropper origins, the teenage Murphy single-handedly held off a Nazi advance in France and logged more than 250 confirmed combat kills. Brought into show business by James Cagney, the boyish-looking living legend profited off acting lessons, wrote poetry and popular music, dated/wed starlets, and may have still had some surprises in store had he not died at a mere 48 in a plane crash in 1971.
Murphy was a key player for Universal, and this boxed set of Blu-ray discs (each movie separately packaged and able to circulate independently) reflect the full-color, widescreen days of 1950s Hollywood westerns, fixin' to compete with the varmints of low-budget B&W oaters and cowboy serials on TV. In two of the pictures, Murphy plays what was a genre standard: an antihero outlaw who redeems himself when circumstances put him on the side of justice.
In 1952's The Duel at Silver Creek, filmmaker Don Siegel's early shoot-em-up, Murphy is the son of a gold prospector murdered by a band of claim jumpers. The orphaned youth reinvents himself as "the Silver Kid," a flamboyant gunslinger. Lightning Tyrone, a stalwart sheriff known for his quick draw, heads off trouble with the Silver Kid by appointing the hothead his very own deputy in an ongoing war against the claim jumpers.
The Silver Kid, however, is savvy to Lightning Tyrone's two weaknesses: the sheriff's lady-love "filly" (Faith Domergue) is an untrustworthy sort—in fact, allied with the bandits—and that a bullet wound has left Lightning Tyrone unable to use his trigger finger (frontier medicine in these pictures never ceases to amaze). Young Lee Marvin also makes an early appearance.
The Blu-ray's chief extra is a commentary track from western buff Toby Roan, and viewers might agree when Roan quotes a 1952 critic that this pic wants to be different than the average sagebrush but doesn't quite make it. Siegel was forced by Universal to pad out the narrative for an acceptable run time and it shows.
More interesting (thanks to a script by Borden Chase) is 1958's Ride a Crooked Trail, directed by Jesse Hibbs in Cinemascope. Here Murphy is aspiring bank robber Joe Maybe who steals the identity of a deceased US Marshall. Joe keeps up the masquerade in a Mississippi River town under the protection of gun-toting, droll Judge Kyle (a lean, early Walter Matthau, in Gary Cooper mode). Of course, Joe has designs on emptying the local bank, but when a rival bunch of criminals targets the town, Joe Maybe's lawman impersonation starts turning into the real thing.
A substantial comic subplot has Joe ensuring the silence of a visiting New Orleans harlot (Gia Scala) who knows his true history by passing the exotic scarlet woman off as his ladylike wife. Toby Roan's commentary track, full of bit-player trivia, adds the melancholy note that beautiful actresses Gia Scala and Joanna Moore suffered tragic offscreen lives, scarred by alcoholism (so, to an extent, did Murphy).
The best-regarded title in the trio, as far as many critics are concerned, is 1959's No Name on the Bullet. It features two names often associated with quality science-fiction: writer Gene Coon (Star Trek's co-creator) and director Jack Arnold. Here Murphy plays a complex, black-clad Mephistophelean type named John Gant, a notorious hired-gun assassin who rides into the town of Lordsburg. Fearful residents must assume someone among them is Gant's intended target. Gant, a principled killer who claims to avoid harming the innocent (or the cowardly, who aren't on his murderous list) seems to enjoy causing discomfort, as the town's dark secrets come to light. He even befriends the (white-clad) local doctor who represents virtue.
In their dual commentary track (recorded at a distance under COVID-19 conditions), historians Steve Mitchell and Gary Gerani discuss the themes of the picture (much more so than behind-the-scenes trivia), portraying it as a symbolism-heavy, quasi-religious allegory of good and evil. Still, for our money, the entry most gracefully aged since the bygone era of the western is Ride a Crooked Trail, for its Talented-Mr.-Ripley-Gone-West premise, action, humor, and Matthau. The trio comes recommended for general shelves. Aud: P.