Audie Murphy: Real and Reel American Hero by Dave Goode

Audie Murphy

Real and Reel American Hero

by Dave Goode

For years I've referred to Audie L. Murphy as "The real Captain America. Hold the Super-Soldier Serum". But I knew him first as a western movie star. It was in high school while telling a friend about an Audie Murphy flick that I had just seen. And he mentioned that the slightly built, baby-faced cowboy star was the most decorated combat veteran of World War Two. I would later see the movie TO HELL, AND BACK where Murphy would play himself in the Universal movie production based on his best selling autobiography. I learned how he was rejected by the Marines, the Navy, and the Paratroopers before the Army accepted him. He wasn't old enough to vote. Three years later he still wasn't able to vote. But when he was discharged from Uncle Sam's service he had been awarded every medal the United States of America gives for bravery and valor. Including the Congressional Medal of Honor. Still I'll always remember him as a western movie hero.

There really is no such thing as a less than entertaining Audie Murphy western. He really wasn't a great actor. But Universal Pictures put him in movies that played to his strengths. Five of my favorites were RIDE CLEAR OF DIABLO (1954), RIDE A CROOKED TRAIL (1958), DESTRY (1954), GUNSMOKE (1953), and DUEL AT SILVER CREEK (1952).

I always thought that last film should have been titled SHOWDOWN AT SILVER CREEK. It would have given it a more western feel. In it Murphy plays a gunfighter known to friends and enemies alike as the "Silver Kid". Watching this movie back when I was twelve or thirteen it got me to thinking that Murphy might have been good playing Marvel Comics western hero the Rawhide Kid. What do you think?

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