No Name on the Bullet is a 1959 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Audie Murphy, Charles Drake, and Joan Evans.

Although it is one of Universal Pictures' modestly budgeted vehicles for World War II hero Audie Murphy, the top-billed actor is unusually, but very effectively, cast as the villain, a cold-blooded gun-for-hire.

[1] When infamous hired gunman John Gant (Audie Murphy) arrives in the small town of Lordsburg, Arizona, the locals are terrified by his reputation and surprised by how young he is.

Next, Stricker gathers the townsmen to challenge Gant, and although Luke disapproves, he agrees to lead them, hoping to minimize the possible violence.

Soon after, Chaffee kills Stricker in a shootout, prompting Sheriff Hastings to take off his badge and drop it on the street.

Anne, who has grown suspicious about her father the judge, reads a letter locked in his drawer that reveals a past crime.

Film critic Dana M. Reemes notes that “according to trade reviews, No Name on the Bullet was strictly intended for the bottom half of the double bill.”[3] “Audie Murphy, along with Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, held together the last vestiges of the B-Western during the fifties and sixties.

[5] Film writer Jeff Stafford stated that, "unlike most of Murphy's earlier Westerns, No Name on the Bullet has a philosophical edge, which makes it closer in tone to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) than a six-gun oater like Destry (1954)".

[6] Biographer Dana M. Reemes, in his book Directed by Jack Arnold (1988) writes: Even the most understanding and sympathetic reviewers entirely missed the film’s most interesting qualities.

It is decidedly not an action melodrama, but rather a highly refined, even philosophical drama examining the nature of good and evil and the emptiness of merely conventional morality.”[7]Reemes observes that “No Name on the Bullet...served its purpose as a bottom-billed western, and was promptly forgotten.

This is unfortunate, as the intelligent script, restrained performances, and smooth direction leave the film relatively undated; certainly its meaning is as relevant as ever…”[8] In 1969, Universal remade it as an episode of The Virginian entitled "Stopover", with singer/actor Herb Jeffries playing Murphy's character.

Film critic Dana M. Reemes formulates the picture’s theme as follows: “The central question of the drama is under what conditions, if any, a man has the power of life and death over his fellows.”[9] Reemes details an exchange in which John Gant, reputed to be a “notorious hired killer,” reveals his true ethical motivations over a game of chess with the town’s physician, Dr. Luke Canfield (Charles Drake).

Gant poses the following hypothetical question: If, on the one hand, a criminal eludes justice, but a man like Gant puts a permanent end to his misdeeds, while, on the other hand, a doctor heals such a man so he may continue his rapacity towards the innocent- who, the gunman, or the doctor, is morally culpable?