Bullet For A Badman (Western) {Audie Murphy} [1964]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057905/

Storyline

Murphy plays ex-lawman who must strap on the guns again to catch a former nemesis, McGavin, who happens to be the ex husband of Murphy's wife and father of the boy that believes he's Murphy's son.

User Review

As this film begins a gang of bandits prepare to ride into town to rob the bank; their leader, Sam Ward, has a specific reason to pick this town; his old friend Logan Keliher lives on a farm outside town… with Ward's ex-wife and his son. As it happens Logan is in town on the day of the robbery and gets caught up in the fighting; he even wounds Ward as he flees the scene. Ward heads to Logan's farm and sees his old wife; before leaving he warns that he will be back to kill Logan. When Logan gets back and hears this he heads into the desert to search for Ward. Here he meets part of the posse; it soon becomes clear that they are more interested in getting their hands on the stolen money than bringing Ward in alive. Ward is holed up with Lottie, the widow of one of the gang, when Logan captures him. Normally the capture of the villain would be the end of the story but here it is just the beginning of the real story; they must get out of Apache territory all the time knowing that the posse could turn on them at any time in an attempt to get the stolen money.

This is a decent B-western with a decent amount of exciting action and a decent story; regular western star Audie Murphy put in a solid performance as our hero Logan and Darren McGavin as good as Ward; a villain who wasn't totally rotten; he found a sort of redemption in the final scene. The posse was a good mixture of characters; some good, some bad and some whose loyalty remained dubious until the point where they had to take sides. For a film of its type I was surprised that there wasn't much of a romantic subplot; Ward may have wanted his wife back but it was clear that she had no interest in him and while Lottie used her feminine wiles there was no question of her trying anything with Logan… it was nice to see that cliché avoided. While this is by no means a classic it is worth seeing by fans of the genre; so far I've yet to be disappointed by Murphy's westerns.