Where Dangerous Things Came In Small Packages

Audie Murphy Draws Down in Column South (1953)

Audie Murphy wails tar out of guys bigger than him, and we believe it because of real-life war record that seemed the stuff of Hollywood fiction. Murphy was ideally timed and suited to graduate from decorated uniform onto sound stages. He was the killer behind a baby's face. Peers at Universal were a little afraid of him, as well they should be, Audie given to moods and not trusting easily. Neither did he like joshing or wise-acreage among peers. Heard a story once, not certain if it’s true, hope it is, where Hugh O'Brien thought to have sport with Audie by challenging him to a quick-draw contest outside the U-I commissary. Audie politely said no, that guns, even prop ones, were not to be toyed with. Hugh persisted, however, and kept pestering Audie at daily lunch. Wiser heads saw what was coming and warned Hugh to lay off. Came the day when Audie had enough. Sure, I’ll gun fight you, Hugh, but it will be with live ammunition. O'Brien and diners looked into cold blue eyes and knew Murphy was dead serious, accent on the dead.  Bet Hugh lunched off U-I’s lot for the next six months.

Audie Murphy never thought he could act, and so gave performances that were natural and underplayed. Universal's commissary were filled in those days with men in chaps or cavalry uniform, women in prairie dress. Take away this studio's westerns and you'd have mostly dark stages. We tend toward blurring them as one, but standards, if somewhat minimal, were met. Most were in Technicolor, casts competent up-and-comers overlapped with reliable vets, Column South a frontier host to Russell Johnson, Joan Evans, and Dennis Weaver among U-I youth, with Ray Collins, Bob Steele, and Robert Sterling to lend seasoned authority. Audie Murphy by 1953 was somewhat in the middle; he'd figure beginners for putting better foot forward, such being this star's insecurity. Direction of Column South was Frederick DeCordova's; in later years producing The Tonight Show, he'd be reminded by Johnny Carson of having helmed Bedtime For Bonzo and others collared as dogs by funny folk on NBC's stage. Too bad Carson or anyone never engaged DeCordova for a serious interview about his early career not only with Universal, but starting at late-40's Warner Bros.