Films that are flawed—not plain bad, but problematic—are welcomed at our Western Night sessions and, as it was his turn to choose, Robert Nott brought one called A BULLET FOR A BADMAN (1964).

This B Western, directed by R. G. Springsteen who directed over 70 B movies in his long career, finds rancher Logan Keliher (Audie Murphy) with a posse in pursuit of outlaw Sam Ward (Darren McGavin) who robbed the town bank. It’s revealed that Keliher and Wood used to be Texas Rangers together, but Wood went bad and ended up in prison and now wants to kill Keliher for marrying his ex-wife Susan (Beverley Owen) and because Wood’s young son believes Keliher is his real father. Later, when the posse captures Wood and sees all that money he stole, some of them want to divvy up those dollars between them, but Keliher says no.

There’s potential to this situation, but it’s the telling that’s the problem. While there are moments that work, like Wood’s bad girlfriend Lottie (Ruta Lee) trying to weasel her way out of trouble, much of the movie lays there as the script by Willard W. Willingham and Mary Willingham from the novel RENEGADE POSSE by Marvin H. Albert (who wrote APACHE UPRISING filmed as DUEL AT DIABLO), tells us what’s going on rather than showing us. And that telling is often bland. Murphy comes across as tired which doesn’t help, either. However, McGavin does seem to enjoy playing the bad guy

Many of the supporting cast would shortly have regular roles on popular television series: Alan Hale Jr. on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, Beverley Owen on THE MUNSTERS, Edward C. Platt on GET SMART, Bob Steele on F TROOP, and George Tobias on BEWITCHED.

Location shooting included Snow Canyon State Park in Utah, and the Universal Studio backlot.

With a running time of 80 minutes (we all agreed it could have been cut by 10 minutes), BULLET FOR A BADMAN is available on DVD.

Along with Robert, award-winning journalist and author of several books on Western films, including his most recent RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY that examines the production, themes and legacy of the film that launched Sam Peckinpah’s career, our group includes Johnny D. Boggs, record ten-time Spur Award-winning author and Owen Wister Award winner whose work includes his latest BLOODY NEWTON, Kirk Ellis, Emmy winning screenwriter and producer, as well as author of the upcoming book THEY KILL PEOPLE about the making of BONNIE AND CLYDE due out in February, Sheila Ellis, Kirk’s wife, and David Morrell, award-winning author and New York Times best-selling author of FIRST BLOOD that introduced the character Rambo.