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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Speaking of cowboys, Vance Capley is drawing a cowboy! 

Who Rides For Justice? by Dave Goode

 

 

 

 

I've long maintained that the most imitated heroes in comics aside from Superman himself were Tarzan and the Lone Ranger. Many of the Ranger imitations differed from the "daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains" in that they had secret identities. While the Lone Ranger much like el Santo lived the mask.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Lone Ranger also had his imitators in the movies as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite of these was the Durango Kid, portrayed in dozens of B-Westerns by Charles Starrett.

 

So popular were these flicks that there was a Durango Kid comic book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the masked western hero I always wanted to see, but never did, was the Copperhead. In the classic movie serial THE MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN the hero is the Copperhead, a masked mystery man who would not have been out of place in a comic book or pulp magazine. In the first chapter of the serial we learn that this Copperhead is the son of the original Copperhead, a masked nightrider of the old west in a chainmail copper mask.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I wish that Republic had made a prequel to THE MYSTERIOUS DR.SATAN that featured the adventures of the old west Copperhead starring one of there many western stars like " Wild " Bill Elliott or Alan " Rocky " Lane.

 

 

 

 Who was your favorite masked cowboy? Let us know in the comments below. Also, don't forget to click the "Link" to see our books and comics.