User Reviews

Two rough and disliked men, Woodley and Cantwell, are drinking at the Lady Gay. They get into a knife fight over some money but Matt comes in before any damage can be done. He tells them both to leave town. They both leaving the saloon in different directions.

Claude and Ab Benteen are waiting outside and rob Cantwell knocking him in the head. Cantwell ends up dead and Woodley is arrest for the crime. He goes to trial and the Judge sentences him to hang.

The weight of having another man die for a crime he did not commit is growing on Ab. The day before Woodley is suppose to hang, Ab goes to town and gets drunk. Inside the Long Branch he starts a fight and draws on a man. The man draws back and shoots Ab. Right before Ab dies he confesses that it was Claude and him that killed Cantwell. And with a storm knocking out the telegraph wires, Matt is unable to get the news out to Hays City.

Matt then has to go out to his good friend Adam Benteen's house to tell him about his son Ab dying and having to arrest Claude. Matt will take Claude to Hays Ci5ty to stop the hanging. Adam tells Matt that he will never make it to Hay City.

On the way to Hays in the middle of a huge storm, Adam shows up trying to get Matt to release his boy. Matt refuses and before a showdown can happen a tree limb breaks off pinning Matt under the limb. Adam can now free his boy from the chains Matt has put on him-- but will anyone find peace in the action?

A nice tale that was well performed. Nothing that really stands out but a nice story that was interesting to the end. Good watch.

An ornery, wife-beating bully named Mel Woodley is convicted of killing another man named Cantwell. The evidence against Woodley is surprisingly weak. It seems the whole case is based on the fact that Matt Dillon had to break up a knife fight between the two men in the Lady Gay Saloon just before Cantwell was stabbed to death. There were no witnesses to the murder, but Woodley is despised by pretty much everyone that knows him. His conviction is swift. The judge sentences Woodley to hang, which also seems odd given the evidence against the man was so weak.

The truth is that Cantwell was killed by two brothers named Ab and Claude Benteen. The boys come from a highly regarded family in Dodge City. Their father, Adam Benteen, and Matt Dillon are friends.

Ab Benteen has trouble dealing with the murder of Cantwell and Woodley's subsequent conviction and death sentence. He tries to sooth his conscience by repeatedly getting drunk. While drunk one night in the Long Branch Saloon, Ab has words with another cowboy patron and starts to draw his gun. The cowboy reacts by fatally shooting Ab. As Ab is dying, he tells Marshal Dillon he and his brother killed Cantwell.

Woodley is due to be executed in Hays City the next day. It is imperative that Matt stop the hanging.

Since it is nighttime, the telegraph office is closed. Matt has to roust Barney, the telegraph operator, from a night of drinking with Hank Cooters. Barney tries to send a telegraph Hays City to stop the hanging, but it does not go through. A storm is raging outside, and the telegraph is out of service.

The Marshal rides to the Benteen ranch to inform the family of Ab's death and to take Claude into custody. Matt intends to ride through the storm to Hays City to make sure Woodley is not executed. Adam allows Matt to leave with Claude, but he warns Dillon that he does not intend to allow them to make it to Hays.

(This is one of two minor complaints I have with this story. It seems the situation would have dictated Matt ride to Hays City with the utmost urgency to stop the execution. Instead, he stops at the Benteen ranch and unnecessarily complicates matters by taking Claude into custody. The other complaint is that Woodley was condemned to hang on such flimsy evidence.)

As Matt and Claude make their way to Hays City, some things happen that change the circumstances. The resolution of the story is unexpected, especially given the history of this show.

This story is a perfect example of the change in tone that occurred between Season 10 and 11 of Gunsmoke. This story probably would not have played out like it does in the earlier days of the series. That is not to say it is bad. It is just not what might be expected.

It is no surprise another strong cast of guest stars are present in this episode. We have come to expect it of Gunsmoke. Forrest Tucker has a relatively small role as Adam Benteen. Ruth Warrick, who played Charles Foster Kane's wife in Citizen Kane and was later a regular cast member of the soap opera All My Children for many years, shows up very briefly as Clara Benteen.

Richard Evans is Ab Benteen, and Tim McIntire is his brother Claude. Tim was the son of character actors John McIntire and Jeanette Nolan. Of course, Nolan was no stranger to the Gunsmoke set, either.

This episode also brings writer Paul Savage back to the show. Savage wrote Gunsmoke scripts in Seasons 8 and 9 but was absent throughout Season 10. He would eventually write a total of 29 episodes of the show.

Worth watching. The "happy" ending seems somewhat contrived, though to be fair it's a very believable scenario with the more courageous of the brothers (Tim McIntyre) who accidentally killed a man not able to stand aside and watch an "innocent" man be hanged for it. This is not justice at all because the condemned partner (Kelly Thordsen) of the dead man is the opposite of innocent in the real sense of the word, never did any good in his life, is forsaken by his long-suffering wife, and is accused of multiple brutal homicides and rape -- yet gets off scot free at the end. A stock portrayal by the very familiar sixties face Richard Evans as the cowardly brother, who commits suicide by drunken shoot-out with a stranger and before he dies breaks his word to his brother by turning him in.

I liked hearing Festus singing. He showed real talent and, who knows, maybe could have made a career out of it?

Too bad they couldn't figure out a way to have him sing with Tim McIntire and Stuart Margolin, another musically talented thespian.

When I was a kid there was talk of a roof in the bottom of the pond in the backyard pond placed there by a tornado in 1966. No one knew which house the roof came from.

I enjoyed the "twisty talk" scene between Kitty and Festus because I feel like if you live in tornado prone area there is a mythological or tall tale aspect to the havoc they wreak.

This episode has great cinematography and makes good use of the close-up shot. CU's work well for the intimacy of dramatic television. I just love the sweaty faces and ratty attire highlighted in this episode via the close-up.

Shooting in black and white is way more moody and appropriate to the gritty tone of Gunsmoke than the subsequent color episodes. Not that black and white automatically achieves this, but it is obvious in this episode that the lighting and camera crew know exactly what they are doing when it comes to filming in black and white.

The transition to color worked well for sitcoms like Bewitched and Gilligan's Island, whereas dramas like Gunsmoke and The Fugitive visually suffered.