User Reviews

In a humorous episode, this Southern Belle, Colleen, comes to town and advises Marshal Dillon that before riding into town someone stolen all the money she had and now she is completely broke. Matt asks Chester, who happens to be smitten with the beautiful woman, to take Colleen over to the Dodge house and get her a room. However Chester does more by going into debt and buying her food.

Another man, Bull Reeger, who is a wealthy but not the best looking man in Kansas, takes a shine to Colleen. He hears about her situation and thinks he can win the love of Colleen by buying her all she wanted. Bull starts off by giving her a house and it is not long before giving her sums of money.

With all the single men in town wanting to get close to the beautiful Colleen it begins somewhat of a competition between men. But Colleen may want a different outcome.

An episode that contained no gun-play or violence but is still, in its own way, entertaining. Joanna Moore does her best Southern accent as she brings the sweet young woman, Colleen, to life on the screen. With a strong cast this episode was entertaining throughout. Good watch.

I thought I had seen most of the Gunsmoke B/W episodes and a lot of them many times. However, this semi comedy episode came on today and I was surprised I had not seen it before. I enjoyed it very much as a change of pace with no violence

The very beautiful Joanna Moore was the star of this episode and she played her part wonderfully. Too bad she had a tragic life.

A charming southern belle arrives in Dodge. She's soon penniless after her purse is stolen, and soon has the men falling all over themselves helping out the poor gorgeous girl, especially Chester. But then the aptly named Bull Reager takes over, and she falls into his clutches, or does she.

The Crutchfield-Meston writing team shows again their ability to come up with imaginative, unpredictable scripts. There's a moon-struck Chester who's always a hoot when awkwardly infatuated. Swoger too is excellent as the plug-ugly, swooning Bull Reager. But it's Joanna Moore who's tops as the defenseless Colleen. I wanted to crawl through the screen to give her a helping hand, what with that soft southern drawl and batting eyelashes. No violence here, just a good ending that may or may not surprise you.

One of the poorest entries in the series.Right from the git-go it wasn't difficult to determine how the story might come to such an ending within the 25 minutes allotted. It seems that Ms.Colleen has been robbed of her savings(which includes fare to continue to St Louis) as she disembarks the stage in Dodge; even the driver is smitten by her good looks and sweet Southern drawl as he escorts her inside.When she reports the theft to Marshal Dillon, he assures her that everything will be done to assist her, and that her money may even be found(while she pleads to him how helpless and forlorn she is). Two of the biggest suckers for her are Chester and Bull Rieger, a townsman who was to leave on a stage, but was so smitten that he stayed,got all spiffied up and showered her with food, money, and even a house! Poor Chester went into debt by ferrying back and forth her new home with all sorts of victuals.About the only factual things concerning Ms Colleen are that Joanna Moore grew up in the South as an orphan.

Colleen arrives on the stage from St. Louis, claiming that she was robbed and is now destitute. She needs help, preferably from wealthy men. This type of story was done on Maverick numerous times, and the Maverick writers knew how to make it funny and put in some unexpected twists to keep it fresh.

On this episode of Gunsmoke, Colleen was played by Joanna Moore, who in her real life was married four times. One of them was to actor Ryan O'Neal. Moore was the mother of Tatum O'Neal, who won an Oscar at the age of 10 for Paper Moon (1973). Moore was on Gunsmoke three times between 1960-1965.

Chester, who is always stalking the stage depot for young women that arrive in town, immediately sees his chance. It was always creepy to watch Chester try to smother a woman with his whiny personality, his poverty, and personal failure. Here he goes all out, and even buys her a huge basket of gifts. How could he afford so many gifts, when he only earned $8.00 a month?

Also vying for the affections of Colleen is the town's drunken bully, Bull Reager. Bull is a former buffalo hunter turned buffalo hides buyer, and a mean dude. This episode starts off with Bull shoving around the stage depot clerk. When Colleen gets off the stage, he feels love at first sight, and buys a suit, quits drinking, becomes a nice guy, and takes a bath. Bull was played by Harry Swoger, who started acting at the age of 40, in 1959, and died eleven years later, in 1970.

Both Chester and Bull fell in love with Colleen. Bull has a home and a lot more money than Chester, so he signs over his house to her, and loads the house up with gifts. A couple of days later, Bull wakes up drunk on the floor, his cash money is gone, and his house got sold to Mr. Jonas. Storekeeper Wilbur Jonas got a good deal on the house by paying Colleen cash. He even helped her leave on the train to St. Louis. Mr. Jonas was the owner of the general store. Jonas was played by the usually unpleasant Dabbs Greer, who appeared on Gunsmoke forty-two times.

Colleen took the money and the next train out of town. She had about $3000 in cash, which would be equivalent to $59,239.24 in 2020 cash. Most of it was from Bull, but Chester also lost about $25 in gifts, which represented his life's savings.

Love is hard, especially when it is between a beautiful woman and the town's biggest losers. Gunsmoke turns what is usually a funny and uplifting story on the Maverick TV show, into a creepy story with a sad ending. Gunsmoke had a knack for tragic tales and bleak stories during this early era, which was dominated by writers John Meston and Les Crutchfield.

(*Bull Reeger to Colleen Tawny quote*) - "This here's a mighty tough town."

Ah, yes - The fools men make of themselves over a pretty face.

Colleen Tawny is a female wolf in sheep's clothing who puts on a helpless act and preys on the generosity of gullible men.

When Colleen arrives in Dodge she finds that there's plenty of men around who are just waiting to be taken for suckers and fools.