User Reviews

The episode begins as two ex-cons are sitting by a campfire. One is Gecko Ridley (LQ Jones) and the other is Roy Hutson. Hutson is telling Ridley abut a train robbery he made a few years ago. Hutson tells Ridley that he is married and shows him a picture of his beautiful wife named Tara. Ridley admires her beauty and then says something about wanting to get with her. This makes Hutson mad since he is married to Tara, so Ridley takes care of that by shooting and killing Hutson. Ridley sets out to Dodge where Tara is suppose to be a dress maker not only to get the girl but also to find out if there is any money left from the robbery.

When Ridley gets into Dodge he finds Tara and tells her that her husband as died. He then wants to know where the $5000 from the train robbery is located. Newly, who is sweet on Tara, rescues her from the threats of Ridley and places him in jail but has to release him when there is not enough to hold him. But in jail Ridley learns that a gold shipment is coming to Dodge which sparks his interest.

Ridley barges into Tara's apartment and forces her to keep Newly busy as he steals the gold shipment. Tara will have two choices one could save her life the other could end her life. But either way at the end of the episode we will find an interesting fact about Ms Tara.

Another nice story that was entertaining to the end. L.Q. Jones was great as the nasty bandit trying to get whatever he wanted. Even with most of the cast absent from the story, it played out well. Sometimes I am hard on Buck Taylor but he did a good job holding this story together. Also we get a treat to see Sam (Glenn Strange) hollering out square dance calls.

Two men named Roy Hutson and Gecko Ridley have recently been released from prison after several years. Roy has told Gecko about $5,000 he still possesses from the train robbery for which he was serving time. Gecko hopes to take advantage of any opportunity to get the money.

As the two men talk around a campfire, Roy mentions Tara, his wife who lives in Dodge City. Gecko realizes she likely knows where the money is hidden. He kills Roy and makes his way to Dodge to find Tara.

In Dodge, Matt Dillon tells Festus Haggen he needs his assistance on a trip for about a week. Newly O'Brien remains in Dodge to act as Deputy.

It just so happens Newly is engaged in a burgeoning romance with none other than Tara Hutson, the woman Gecko is seeking. Newly does not know Tara is married.

When Gecko Ridley arrives in Dodge, he finds Tara at an event square dancing with O'Brien. When Tara returns to her room at the Dodge House, Ridley is waiting for her. At first, Gecko pretends to be a sympathetic old friend of Roy as he relates a tale about he and Roy being attacked by Indians and Roy being killed. However, Ridley soon tires of the charade and demands Tara tell him where the money is located. Tara tells Gecko she has no knowledge of the money.

The remainder of the story involves Ridley's attempts to coerce Tara into revealing the location of the money of which he is convinced she has knowledge, or - later - to help him rob a gold shipment being held at the jail in Dodge. Tara tells Newly about her background and Ridley's threats, which pits the Deputy against Ridley.

The enticing Michele Carey portrays Tara Hutson. This is her only Gunsmoke appearance. Westerns fans may remember Carey from her role as Josephine "Joey" MacDonald in the Howard Hawks film El Dorado starring John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and James Caan.

L. Q. Jones makes the last of his seven Gunsmoke appearances as Gecko Ridley. Jones often played villains in television dramas, and he is at his most sinister here. He also had prominent roles in many of Sam Peckinpah's films. He was often paired in those films with his longtime friend and fellow Gunsmoke alum Strother Martin.

Buck Taylor gets the spotlight in this episode. It seems many of the episodes that feature the Newly character have him involved in some type of romance. Matt, Festus, Kitty Russell, and Doc Adams have small, inconsequential parts in the story.

The Tara Hutson character is one of the more intriguing frequent Gunsmoke viewers will encounter. Early in the episode when Roy first tells Gecko about Tara, Gecko makes some disparaging remarks about her, but her husband instantly defends her and insists she is an honorable person. Newly is smitten, but Tara keeps him at arm's length.

Is Tara the innocent victim, or is she a clever, deceitful woman? The way the story unfolds keeps the viewer guessing along with the other characters.

There are a few minor head-scratching elements in this story. The Gecko Ridley character files the trigger off his Colt revolver at the beginning of the episode. He intends to fire the gun by "fanning" the hammer. However, single-action revolvers required pulling the trigger to fire the gun. Once the trigger is pulled and held against the back of the trigger guard, the pistol could be fired repeatedly by fanning the hammer. However, this was rarely -- if ever -- done in the old West. Fanning the hammer tended to decrease accuracy significantly, and it was typically only done in Wild West shows. It would have been impossible with the trigger filed off.

In the square-dancing scene (bonus content: Sam Noonan calling a square dance!), the room is decorated with what appears to be so-called Cowpens flags with a circle of stars with a solitary star in the center. Since the flag originated in the late 1700s, it would have been odd for it to be displayed at a dance in Kansas in the late 1870s, which is the Gunsmoke era. Colorado had recently been added as the 38th state. There is a version of the U. S. flag from that time that arranged the thirty-eight stars with two concentric circles featuring thirty-three stars and a star in the center, plus a star in each of the four corners of the blue field. However, that is not the flag hanging in the room where the dance is being held.

Finally, the picture Roy has at the beginning of the episode and Gecko possesses later is not the type of photograph that would have been produced during the time in which Gunsmoke is set. It looks more like what might be called a "glamour shot" today with a closeup of Tara's head.

Might have been ok for a half hour episode. One major obvious mistake is when the gold shipment is locked up in the jail cell, the key to the cell is hung on a peg next to the jail cells. How secure is the gold shipment?

In addition to the jail cell keys being easily accessible, Newly and Burke talk about the gold shipment loud enough so the LQ Jones character could hear them through the door. You would think they would not have talked so loud after closing door to the jail cells. Very "grade school" act.

Newly is also easily taken in by the Michele Carey character. She's a beautiful women and easy to see how he would be attracted to her, but she doesn't sound too bright. But i won't go any further as I don't want to give away more of the plot. It was an interesting yarn, however and worth the watch, even 50 years after it came out.