Jack Lambert ranked as a classic villain in American cinema and television during his 28 year career. Mind you, he was never more menacing than as an itchy-fingered, trigger-happy gunslinger who sought Matt Dillon's scalp in the "Gunsmoke" episode entitled "There Was Never a Horse." Sadly, Hollywood never gave Lambert the chance to see his name glitter above the title on a movie marquee the way it later did his fellow contemporary character actors, such as Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Henry Silva, and Lee Van Cleef. Lambert radiates evil charisma as the scowling Kin Creed, and he is on the prod for anybody to kill. He rides into Dodge and ties his horse to a crowded hitch rail. He upsets a lounging cowboy by turning loose his horse so he can have room for his own mount. Creed forces the barkeeper to search for a bottle of rye even when the barkeep assures him that he has no more rye to sell. He riles a drunken cowboy (future movie director Joseph Sargent of "The Taking of the Pelham One, Two, Three") in the Long Branch later when he advises him to "Go home to your pigs, mister," and then kills him. Marshal Dillon concedes that Creed broke no law when he shot the cowboy. "I don't like gunmen here, Creed," Matt informs Creed in no uncertain terms. "I'll tell you something, Marshal, it didn't mean a thing to me to kill that drunk just now," Creed explains, "Not proud of it . . ., but taking a man like you—that'd be different." When Creed pistol whips a barroom patron, he forces Matt into a confrontation. Creed shoots Matt in the forearm and the wound causes him to drop his six-gun. The revolver breaks once it strikes the dirt and now it is no longer useful because the cylinder has fallen out of the frame. Matt knows that Creed won't follow up and kill him in cold blood. Creed insists that Matt tells him why he won't finish the lawman off. Matt sums it up the situation, "Because you wouldn't be able to brag about killing an unarmed man?" Creed refuses to shoot it out with Matt once he spots the forearm wound. "That's bleeding pretty bad. I ain't gonna shoot me no cripples neither," vows Creed. Meantime, somebody else shoots Kin in the back. The ethics that Kin displayed in the dealings with Matt prove to be his Achilles ' heel when a lesser man looking for a reputation enters the picture and kills him before Matt can slap leather with him again. Before the showdown, Matt knew that some people in Dodge were betting that he would shoot it out with Creed. Matt justifies his reluctance to square off against Creed to a citizen: "You know what I got in this envelope here? It's a paycheck from the United States Government, and it's for enforcing the law. It's not for stepping out into the street and shooting it out with every crazy gunman that comes into Dodge trying to make a reputation for himself." The message in John Meston's teleplay 'live by the gun and die by it' was re-echoed throughout other westerns in the 1950s, particularly "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral." This was one of the more memorable episodes, and one of Jack Lambert's stellar career moments.
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