This //should// have been one of the great "Gunsmoke" episodes. Instead, it throws away 45 minutes of an outstanding story and script on five minutes of idiocy.
It's particularly disappointing because the story is apropos of "Gunsmoke"'s milieu -- the cattle business. (Two fancy words in one sentence -- and one of them misused!) Two feuding cattle barons -- John Charron (Forest Tucker) and Luke Cumberbatch -- uh, Cumberledge (Robert Wilke) are approaching Dodge with their herds. Or more precisely, //herd//, as Charron is inexplicably beeve-less.
The bad blood between Charron and Cumberledge goes back years, the two continually trying to outdo or take advantage of each other. The pleasure of this episode lies in the gradual denouement (another fancy word) of the situation, with the revelation of why the two are being followed by gunslingers, and the reason for Charron having no cattle. (I'm not going to spoil this.)
Festus convinces Cumberledge that Matt wants him to halt his huge herd well-outside Dodge and let his sex-and-whisky-starved men come in a few at a time so the town won't get shot up -- and for no other reason. Charron then drops the other shoe, insisting that Matt support him in a matter in which the law is on his side. This makes Matt and Festus look like liars, and there's a face-off between the two groups of drovers.
So far, so good. Matt shows his good sense by convincing C&C they don't want to start anything that would cause their hands to be injured or killed -- maybe they should settle this man-to-man. He adds "I've never thought of a gun as being the measure of a man," and C&C remove their gun belts, before starting an old-fashioned fist fight. That's good, too.
But not good enough for the script editor, who must have felt -- there having been only one shooting prior to this -- a two-man fistfight just wasn't violent enough in a series notorious for its over-the-top violence. So the fistfight devolves into a general melee (the actor playing the officer isn't credited), with even Matt getting involved. This is accompanied by humorous background music, to tell us we're not supposed to take this seriously. *
C&C eventually tire, and Matt drags them into the Long Branch, suggesting it's about time they considered a partnership. They promise to think it over, but Charron avers it'll take more than one bottle of whisky. There's bonhomie all around (with "hah-hah-hah, ho-ho-ho, and a couple of tra-la-las"), bringing the tale to an annoyingly cute ending. The temptation to round up the writer, director, & producer, and tie them to a railroad track, is overwhelming.
This un-serious ending is telegraphed by the casting of Forest Tucker. Tucker could be a good serious actor (the episode in which he plays a father whose sons murder a man shows him at his best), but there's something fundamentally comic about his visage. It's hard not to look at him and smile. Given the story's needlessly silly turn, it must have seemed wise to cast someone who would make it more plausible/palatable.
Speaking of casting... Thad is finally out of the picture, with Festus garnering more of the spotlight. He gets a lot of screen time, most of it showing him behaving intelligently and responsibly. We also see his growing affection for and loyalty to Matt. The producer must have decided that Festus wasn't going to be pinned with a Deputy's badge unless we saw him earn it. Good decision.
Despite my low rating, I strongly recommend this episode. Up to the last five minutes, it's exceptionally good.
* This is one of the worst examples I've seen of how //not// to score a TV episode. Up to now, the story was dead-serious. Is the viewer suddenly supposed to think he's watching a comedy? Then what was the point of what came before?
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