Bill Il Sanguinario

Audie Murphy's first western for Universal is a blank-faced version of the story of Billy the Kid that white-washes almost everyone. The script tries to push a few romantic notes into the narrative, with him and Gale Storm obviously falling in love instantly, but neither of them doing anything about it, because she's married to Albert Dekker. Dekker himself has the best role as a guy wh wants to do the right thing, but is too weak-willed to stand up for anything under pressure.

I don't know if it was that way in the script, but Murphy's playing of Bnney, the lack of explanations or, indeed, many lines works well. I imagine director Kurt Neuman cut his lines and told him to under-react. The result is a simple, effective portrayal of someone wh feigns passivity, when what he really wants to do is kill.