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| Ken Curtis and James Arness estimate the damages in "Vengeance." |
Directed by Gunnar Hellstrom and written by Clyde Ware, "Cattle Barons" is a tense showdown between landowners Forrest Tucker and Robert J. Wilke; it's first-rate until it builds to an overlong fist-fight involving just about every character in the show in the middle of Dodge's main street.
Bernard McEveety/Calvin Clements'"The Prodigal" features an excellent Lew Ayres as the doddering grandfather of a young gunman determined to learn the identity of the man who shot his father in the back, which is a secret guarded under law. Also written by Calvin Clements, Richard C. Safarian's two-parter "Vengeance" stars James Stacy at his peak as a former carnival trick-shooter out to avenge himself against steely-eyed landowner John Ireland, whose men killed his father and brother for relieving the pain of one of his wounded calves. This superb episode also features a truly fine, touching early supporting appearance by Kim Darby, an authoritative minor part for Paul Fix, and rural menace from Royal Dano and Victor French. Then Robert Totten returns to the director's chair for Ron Bishop's script "A Hat," with an amazing, over the edge performance by Chill Wills as an aging gunman whose son is killed in self-defense by a mountain man who finds the protection of Matt Dillon, thus putting all of Dodge into imminent danger.
It's remarkable how often the same story elements and situations come into play, but there is never any sense of redundancy in the storylines. The only trouble with these early color episodes is that CBS really wanted to sell color television sets, so the color is BATMAN-lurid and sometimes hard to look past. I never imagined that Marshall Dillon's one and only shirt was lavender all these years! There's even some lavender lighting in the exteriors, and the green felt tabletops in the Long Branch Saloon look like enormous lime lollipops.
(c) 2020 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.