No Name on the Bullet

Although he's indelibly associated with classic sci-fi, this is the fourth and finest of Arnold's '50s Westerns. Undoubtedly Murphy's strongest showing in the saddle too, as the baby-faced, softly-spoken, yet notorious hired gun whose arrival in town means a mission to kill - but who? Drake's honest doctor hopes to halt potential bloodshed, but his neighbours' guilty secrets suggest no shortage of possible targets. Given the escalating paranoia, you might assume a McCarthyite parable about corruption lurking in the community, yet the intelligent script points provocatively at establishment wrongdoing. Compact, thoughtful, expertly performed, it's a model B-picture, and unfortunately Arnold's last film of genuine worth before a further two decades of TV and minor assignments.