User Reviews

In this episode we have a story involving two families that are at odds with each other. One family, the Haimes, consist of the father and his son named Cully. The other family, the Boldens, consist of the father and his daughter named Janie. The two young people are in love and the feud is between the fathers not wanting their children to marry the other child.

One day the two fathers get together for an all out fist-a-cuffs but is interrupted when Cully injures Mr Bolden. Right after this Mr Bolden hires a gunfighter to put the fear into Cully and to make him stay away from his daughter.

The cold professional gunfighter, Boyd Avery, does his work till it is completed. His intentions is to kill Cully and not just to scare him unless the full amount of money is paid to leave the area.

Mr Bolden agrees to pay the high fee but word has leaked out that the gunfighter is here to kill Cully. So when Cully confronts Body Avery in the street of Dodge and they agree to meet the following morning in the old town outside Dodge for a gunfight.

Things look bad for Cully as Boyd is a known professional that has a reputation for killing many people. When Janie hears the news she decides to go to the old town. Will she be able to stop the gunfight before someone ends up dead? And with the fathers also arriving will they be able to stop the feud?

A very nice story that was perfectly cast. From the fathers to the gunfighter each actor brought the character alive to make for an entertaining episode. Nice watch

"The Judas Gun" is an hour-long version of one of John Meston's worst scripts, "Romeo". The extra time permits fleshing out the characterizations, and the gunslinger now occupies a central point in the story. There's also a bit of Meston-ish irony, with the son the gunslinger is after, saving him when his horse throws him.

Had Meston written this version, at least two of the five potential corpses would have been pushing up daisies at the end. (You've got the fathers, the kids, and the gunfighter to choose from.) Unfortunately, the networks were under increasing pressure to minimize violence. So the fathers implausibly bury the hatchet after 30 years of feuding.

That wouldn't have been so bad had Harry Kronman written a serious, plausible reconciliation scene. The fathers instead sort of cutely "kiss and make up". It's almost as bad as if they'd engaged in open-mouthed kissing. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

What makes this episode so deeply disappointing is that, until Matt shows up and stops the gunfight (at this point in the history of the series, you were expecting something else?), you really /don't know/ how the story will end -- and then it peters out in a pile of sentimental slop.

I don't like knowing how a story will end. I like intelligent surprises.

I didn't think the daughter Laurie Mock did such a bad acting job. Although it wasn't Oscar winning performance either. She did have a good confronting her father scene when she found out he hired the gunfighter. And the climax where she was pleading for her boyfriends life wasn't bad either.

In fact Mock did a better acting performance than Amanda Blake did. And Blake has a star billing. For Blake's only appearance she just sat at the table as Ken Curtis delivered his usual whimsical tale and she looked like she was thinking 'Gosh I just sit here looking annoyed for a couple minutes and I get a big paycheck.' Then when Avery the gunslinger walks into the bar eveybody at the table looks stunned and Blake turns to Matt and delivers her only line, "Aint that boy we never met?" (As far as I can tell) And for me her line doesn't even make sense!

***SPOILERS*** Avery was right, except that he forgot his own code. See, he said earlier in this episode that he (as a professional) would have to be paid. And he would have been, too. the next morning. when he was supposed to be meeting Cully, he should have collected his pay, and took a powder.

Now, actually, according to Hollywood lore, this would have worked out to his distinct advantage. See, the next fool; and there is ALWAYS another young gunfighter looking to make his reputation, isn't there? Absolutely. The whelp naturally should have assumed that good old Avery just wasn't up to snuff anymore. Overconfident, he goes down in a blaze of stupidity. Before that, however, Boyd Avery pockets $1500 in coin of the realm and says aloha, suckers.

Okay, fine. it was just a little speculatin'. The kid would probably get his Karma leveled later, by someone else. Entertaining, with a great bone dry, dusty, prolific, ghost town..an 8.

The personalities on display here are as wooden as a fence post. UnSalvageable story line meets actors pulled from the 1970 Hollywood bread line. So much does not make sense that i caution any viewer who is looking for closure. The hired gun is working for 1/3 his wage. The duel location was chosen to avoid the Marshall, who arrives anyway...the antagonists are actually the business partners who do not get their comeuppance. Not sure the status of the gunfighter at the end. Muddled and unsatisfying story where Dillon and Festus dont really participate and basically are derelict in their civic duty multiple times...miss kitty has one sentence of dialogue and everyone seems resurrected from previous stories.

This story about a family feud gone wrong becomes interesting, when the gun fighter(Avery) hired to kill Cully winds up the good guy. However after being cared for by the young man and meeting Janie he realizes the feud is not worth killing for. He talks Mr Bolden into changing his mind about the hit. Yes he asks to be rewarded the same as killing him for leaving however it should be worth that price to show Bolden he had taken it to far. This is the best part of the episode, unfortunately its only about half over at this point.

As Avery is making his preparations to leave town, Cully shows up and makes a fool of him by calling him out in front of dodge citizens, Calling him a liar and punching him in the face. Avery lets the boy off in town but knows he can't let his reputation die because of this punk kid.

Needless to say the end has Avery taking a bullet and who knows what else maybe going to jail. While the two families have a happy ending. The question is why do they deserve one and not Avery?

I rate this episode so low because it fails to make you feel sorry for anyone other than Avery and maybe Janie. Janie hasn't got many lines however and you don't get attached to her.

Noah Haimes and Clete Bolden hate each other and have been feuding for years. Noah's son Cully and Clete's daughter Janie are (surprise!) in love. When the two fathers get into a fight, Cully comes to his dad's defense and shoots Clete in the arm. Clete responds by hiring a gunfighter named Boyd Avery to scare Cully.

Avery follows Cully out of Dodge, but a snake spooks his horse, and he is thrown and injured. Cully takes Avery back to the house he shares with his father. Avery quickly recovers, and he and Cully spend some time sizing up one another.

Cully easily deduces the circumstances of Bolden hiring Avery, but he wrongly assumes Avery has been hired to kill someone. Meanwhile, Bolden comes to his senses and asks Avery to leave. Avery demands payment, anyway. After all, he is a professional, and he wants to be paid for his time regardless of the results. Bolden agrees to meet Avery and pay him the next morning in Dodge after the bank opens.

Everything seems to be resolved, until Cully confronts Avery in Dodge. Cully calls Avery a liar and knocks him to the ground. Avery heeds the warning Marshal Dillon had given him earlier and rides away. Of course, that is not the end of the story. Avery is not going to let someone challenge his pride in this manner without doing anything.

This appearance as Noah Haimes marks the last on Gunsmoke for character actor Richard X. Slattery. Slattery appeared in numerous television shows and films in the 1960s and 1970s, often in small parts.

Prolific actor Peter Jason makes the first of his three Gunsmoke appearances as Cully Haimes. Jason continues to be active in Hollywood, including recurring roles in the short-lived series Mike Hammer, Private Eye; the HBO Western Deadwood; and the FX series Baskets.

This is the last acting credit in any capacity for Laurie Mock, who plays Janie Bolden. This is her only Gunsmoke participation. Mock's Hollywood career was short with a few appearances in TV dramas and roles in the cult "B" movies Hot Rods to Hell and Riot on Sunset Strip.

Sean McClory, who grew up in Ireland, was a familiar face in films and television shows that called for Irish characters. His big break in Hollywood came when John Ford cast him with John Wayne in The Quiet Man. McClory plays Clete Bolden in this story.

Ron Hayes shows up in eight different Gunsmoke installments from Season 5 through Season 16. He appears here as the gunfighter, Boyd Avery.

This story is a blatant Romeo and Juliet rehash with some added twists. I think every drama and situation comedy of any duration has used some variation on this plot. The Season 3 Gunsmoke episode "Romeo" uses a similar theme, as does the much better Season 10 episode "Crooked Mile," and Season 11's "Harvest."

What's worse, the story is not even handled well. Maybe it was due to the emphasis on less violence and more congenial endings in television that was prevalent during this period. For whatever reason, the story is not resolved as much as it falls apart.

This episode is another in an unusually poor-quality string of stories included in Season 15.