User Reviews

A balding, 50-ish, bank teller marries a saloon girl who sees him as the means to escape her past and have a respectable life. He has worked at the bank for 15 years. But when the head bank in Chicago orders Mr. Bodkin to replace him with a younger man who they will be sending out, the wife is furious and places additional stress on him.

Then some robbers force their way into the bank. But Albert does something heroic to thwart the robbers. They scoot out of town without a penny, but as Albert is closing the safe, temptation overcomes him. He takes $5,000 thinking the robbers will get the blame.

But they don't like being fooled and they come back to hold his wife hostage while they scheme to rob the bank for good.

The ending is quite good, you may see it coming, might not. At least it is a good ending and I enjoyed it.

This was a good story with great acting, the revelation for me being William Schallert, who gave an excellent performance here after years stuck in the role of Patty Duke's put-upon dad. Here he is quietly menacing, and never puts a foot wrong in nuanced body language, expression or timing. The story unfolded subtly and believably. Patricia Barry was very good value as her usual harpy, this time a former "saloon gal" harrying poor husband "Albert" (Milton Selzer): "You're 55 years old" says the 47-year-old actress accusingly to the 51-year-old. Here Patricia was starting to show her years -- but see her amazingly preserved in "Sea Of Love" 20 years later. The only let-down was a one-in-a-billion unbelievable "happy" ending tacked on. Patricia turns into a loving earth mother and Albert is forgiven his theft of $5,000 from his employer, and offered what he and his ambitious wife have always wanted, after 15 years in a low-level job: bank manager. And what do they do? Opt to live on love, "It doesn't matter where" -- when in actuality these middle-aged tenderfoots are likely to get scalped (one way or another) 40 miles any which way out of Dodge.

***SPOILERS*** I know that I'm not the only one who talks to the T.V. when I see something stupid. AM I? The problem I have with this Oater is that it's just too long. If it were in a half hour format, yeah, good. The hour gives the teller (Selzer) too much time to think about what he should do. Now, if they'd given miss Barry more screen time, and less shrew time, well, then, maybe. I mean ... I felt sorry for the guy, but come on! we all knew that the brutal dirtbag (Jones) was gonna try something with Kate, and I was very pleased when Albert almost strangled him to death.

The business with the head bank wanting to dump teller even with his years of service hits home with a lot of people who've lost out to younger, prettier idiots. Mr. Botkin was real slow to finally see what a good man he had. I still think that he should have been able to shoot at least ONE of the rats dead. Festus, however, took care of that little bit of housecleaning for him. Of course, Matt gets to have his fun clearing the trash. The Stuntwork was top drawer quality, as usual (when they give these fine performers a chance), and I still advocate for an Oscar and an Emmy for stunt personnel. I'm giving this one a 9.

Albert Schiller has been working as a teller at the Dodge City Bank for 15 years. Mr. Bodkin, the manager of the bank, assumed Albert would be his successor. Unfortunately, the owners of the bank have inexplicably decided to replace Albert with someone younger.

Albert married a woman named Kate, a former saloon girl. Kate married Albert because she thought his career was promising with an opportunity for advancement. (Marriages are often depicted on Gunsmoke as more pragmatic matters than because the couple is in love.) Now that the bank is dismissing Albert, she is disappointed and disillusioned.

Three men - Jake Spence, Joe Nix, and Tom Clark - are in Dodge posing as cattle buyers waiting for the herds to arrive. Their actual plan is to rob the bank. They attempt to use Albert to accomplish their plan, but things do not go as expected. They leave with nothing. They do manage to elude capture, however.

Albert briefly finds himself alone with the open safe. He reluctantly seizes on the opportunity and pockets a bundle of cash totaling $5,000. He correctly assumes the would-be robbers will be blamed for the theft.

When Spence, the leader of the gang, reads about the robbery in the newspaper, he realizes Albert must have taken the money. Since he knows Albert is compromised, Spence sees this as an opportunity for the gang to return to Dodge and force Albert to help them successfully rob the bank.

Playing the role of Albert Schiller, this represents Milton Seltzer's fourth and final Gunsmoke appearance. Seltzer often played this type of sad, pathetic "loser," although his career was quite successful in doing so.

Patricia Barry plays Kate Schiller in what was also the last of her three Gunsmoke appearances. Like Seltzer, Barry enjoyed a long, successful acting career.

William Schallert, L. Q. Jones, and Robert Random play the would-be bandits, all who were certainly no strangers to the show. The casting of Schallert as Jake Spence is interesting. In the previous season's "The Money Store" episode, Schallert portrayed a bank employee.

Roy Roberts plays Harry Bodkin, as usual, but he enjoys more screen time than he normally gets.

This story idea is not bad, but the way the story is handled lacks quality. Even the acting leaves much to be desired at times. For example, there is one scene where Joe Nix attacks Mrs. Schiller. Albert "loses it" and begins choking Nix. This should have been a tense scene with an unexpected reaction on Mr. Schiller's part. But when the camera zooms in on the action, it is obvious Milton Seltzer is barely touching L. Q. Jones, and the facial expressions from Jones are almost comical.

I typically try to avoid spoilers, but it is difficult when writing about this episode. The ending to the story is eye-roll worthy. First, Kate Schiller suddenly decides she actually loves Albert after all. She had previously indicated her interest in Albert was more mercenary in nature, but everything suddenly changes.

Secondly, we have a couple in the Schillers whose livelihood depends on Albert's job at the bank, but they decide he will just walk away from it with no plans. While it may sound romantic, few working stiffs can quit their job and get by on love alone. Plus, Bodkin assures Schiller he will eventually take over the manager's role. That kind of position would be coveted and highly regarded.

Finally, there is almost no world in which the owners of the bank -- or even Mr. Bodkin for that matter -- would allow Albert to continue working at the bank with the knowledge he stole $5,000, even though he returned it. Bankers insist on impeccable integrity where handling money is concerned, and the knowledge that Albert had succumbed to temptation -- although it was under extreme circumstances -- would prevent him from further employment at the bank. (Full disclosure: I have worked with various financial institutions my entire career. I have seen jobs terminated for much less than what Albert does in this episode.) The willingness to overlook such a mistake only happens in television shows.

In a rather nice story this episode never got the viewer appeal that it was seeking. The main reason for the disappointment was that the cast seemed improperly selected for the show. The bank teller, Albert, was played by Milton Selzer- was suppose to be married to a beautiful Patricia Berry. This really did not fit. Also William Schallert, who is great in 'Patty Duke Show' and 'Dobie Gillis', is unbelievable as a bank robber. Even though this may seem small- it made the entire storyline seem incorrect.

Albert, the bank teller in Dodge, is being replaced by the owners because they are trying to bring younger people into bank jobs. Albert only has a few more days to work when three outlaws come in to rob the bank. Albert is able to stop the robbery as the townsfolk come to his aid. But with the safe open and the robbers unable to take anything, Albert decides to help himself to $5000.

When the robbers read a paper saying that $5000 was stolen, they know that Albert must have taken the cash. They return to Dodge to pressure Albert into letting them inside the bank to take even more cash. In order to keep his wife alive Albert must follow the orders of the robbers. The plot will be how he is going to handle the situation when the robbers come calling on the bank.

Even with casting problems, the story never really grab hold of the viewers interest. It was a nice story but in production looked poorly done.