Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website Message Boards

Watched Joe Butterfly last night, one of my favorites. Watched Cast a Long Shadow today. This movie will be next years AM Days movie to honor hopefully Terry Moore, the first female star to attend AM Days.

Loved "The Flight". Wish "The Incident" would show up on youtube. I watched the original broadcast but remember nothing about it. It would be fun to see Audie in a Confederate uniform for a change. His forefathers would like that. He had to be one of the most under utilized actors in Hollywood.

Gerry,

I think there is as much a chance of The Incident ever being seen by the public as there is seeing the original cut of The Red Badge of Courage, probably never going to happen but one can always hope. According to Col Simpson's book Audie had almost as many relatives who fought for the Union as he did ones who fought for the Confederacy. So not so ridiculous to think Audie could have fought for the Union side as seen in The Guns at Fort Petticoat.

Sharon

I dunno. The Incident still exists but is held by an organization that's not all that industrious about releasing its holdings (Reagan Library I think). Missing Red Badge footage was supposedly hacked out of the masterprint by producer Dore Schary himself, and destroyed.

Just watched "Prayer of a Chance"-the episode of Whispering Smith where the title character swears off guns temporarily at the request of a padre whose church had a jeweled statue stolen. I'm always mildly surprised by this episode-yes, its handling of religion is pretty typical for the fifties and early sixties, but it's just kind of surprising to see religion addressed at all, given that Murph was co-producing the series and his attitude towards organized religion ranged from disinterest to disrespect.

Amusingly, the two outlaws Smith has promised not to shoot at probably suffer more painfully because of his plan for taking them alive with himself unarmed, than they would've if he'd just shown up and pointed his revolver at them.

Although I've owned "Bad Boy" on my Amazon Prime video account for quite a while, I just got around to watching it and was mightily impressed with Audie's performance in his first starring role. I've read critiques that reference his "wooden" facade in the movie but I thought it struck just the right note for the character he portrayed, a boy who had been abused by his step father and developed a strong wall of indifference to protect himself from further pain.

Audie showed remarkable range in his acting, including a scene where he wept after his mother's death. The crack in his voice was even more convincing then the tears and the fear in his eyes when he is finally cornered in an escape attempt from the ranch and possibly facing death was amazing.

This was another example to me of how good of an actor he really was and what a shame it became that Universal took advantage of his money making capabilities by placing him in movies that never allowed him to stretch his wings in his chosen craft.

Audie's and Elvis' acting careers parallel in that respect. Universal stymied Audie's career with the way they handled him, and Elvis' acting career was hindered by Colonel Parker and the studios. Both men were much better actors than they were given credit for, and both were not allowed to show that they could have been even better actors.

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"You lead from the front." Audie Murphy, WWII's Most Decorated Soldier

Gerry/Bob,

I completely agree that both Audie and Elvis were better actors than they were ever allowed to show on screen. They were both boxed in to a certain genre and hardly ever allowed to move into any other kind of film. As for Audie, look at his performance in The Red Badge of Courage. Even all chopped up it holds up today. He definitely held his own with Jimmy Stewart in Night Passage and Michael Redgrave in The Quiet American. His performance was haunting in No Name on the Bullet and he was amazing in The Unforgiven.

But to me the ultimate example of his acting ability came in the TV production The Man and he totally shattered his public persona playing this psychopath and you felt frightened just to watching him. Then at the end he came on as himself and was that nice guy again and it was surreal. That is when you knew if fate had worked out differently for him, he could have been a great character actor on television and had a long career in it.

Sharon

It would have been so wonderful to see him go on to be a character actor. He certainly had both the range and the talent and he didn't seem to mind sharing the screen with other actors. In fact, I think he did some of his best work in situations where he didn't carry the entire production. Two of the best pairings for him, for me, were Dan Duryea and John Saxon. Wouldn't we love to not only see the footage that got cut out of Red Badge but also Unforgiven where Audie and John had scenes together.

I agree with you Gerry. Audie would have made a wonderful character actor. I think he could have played so many things if he were given the opportunity. His performance in The Unforgiven was wonderful and so was RBoC, both directed by Huston. Audie was able to do anything he put his mind to and I have no doubt that given a chance he could have had a long and profitable career.

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Betty

Saw World in My Corner a couple weeks back. The fight scenes are really intense, as is the scene that gives the movie its name. Barbara Rush had pretty good chemistry with Murph, but was very unflatteringly photographed and she and just about everyone else had lame dialogue most of the time. Murph was awesome. I wasn't that high on the movie overall-too preachy when it got away from the fight scenes.

I've been thinking for months now that I needed to sit down and rewatch Trunk To Cairo, with all the nonsense in the Middle East right now, and finally did so. There are a couple of bits that make me cringe a bit, but overall it was more fun than I remembered. For added joy, I was watching it on a pretty large tv with with the color saturation boosted to offset the somewhat washed-out video quality, and it really gave the film a bit of panache.

Watched "Sierra" last night. Another of those films where Audie was said to be "wooden" and I can see that in some scenes where his character is supposed to be secretive and holding back from interacting with people but there were some terrific moments where his face showed flickers of emotion that were just perfect for the story line.

The most interesting thing about this movie to me is knowing from an historical perspective that he and Wanda were suffering through a failing marriage at the time but when you see them onscreen together they looked to me like a couple of Lego pieces that just fit into each other. There was almost an audible click when scenes showed them in a close, physical relationship such as the one where he is first taking her back to the cabin and she is riding behind the saddle cantle.

It's fun to see Anthony (Tony) Curtis and James Arness as well as other actors who went on to larger film careers. I can't watch that movie without recalling the story of how Audie fell off his horse at one time and, of course, the famous tale of him "shooting" Tony Curtis.

I don't know the story of him falling off the horse. Can you please share it with me.

Yes, especially when supposedly Audie felt that Tony Curtis should portray him in To Hell and Back.

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"You lead from the front." Audie Murphy, WWII's Most Decorated Soldier

Murphy takes a lot of flak for his "early" performances but frankly I think what he does in these movies compares very favorably to what Wanda Hendrix (Sierra) or Brian Donlevy (Kansas Raiders) are doing opposite. I can enjoy over the top and silly, but Wanda and Donlevy are just annoying in those films imo.

As far as the chemistry between the leads in Sierra, it seemed to me kind of one-sided, like she was still pretty into him but he was largely over her. Just my opinion.

I don't remember any particular stories about Murph falling off a horse on this production, but I believe he was still learning to ride at the time, so it's possible.

There is some confusion about whether the incident with Tony Curtis happened on this shoot or on Kansas Raiders. Something very similar to it is mentioned in the press materials for Sierra, without naming the actor on the receiving end of Murph's prank, but Tony Curtis and James Best both claim that Murph pranked Curtis using a gun loaded with blanks during the Kansas Raiders shoot.

Curtis claimed that he and Murph became pretty good friends after the incident, fwiw. I always thought the line about "I don't think I'm the type, maybe Tony Curtis would do," was more a joke and a potshot at the studio heads and their priorities than a serious suggestion. But again, just my opinion.