The Daniel Barrister Story Apr 16, 1958
The Major Adams Story: Part 1 Apr 23, 1958
The Major Adams Story: Part 2 Apr 30, 1958
The Charles Maury Story May 7, 1958
These are all good episodes. Daniel Barrister is a fiery Christian Scientist, (he's played by Charles Bickford, who is a fiery anything), who insists that that the only thing that can cure physical problems is prayer and if some one dies, it's because you allowed your belief in prayer to falter. He and his wife had a daughter, (prior to the action of this episode), who died and he blames it on his wife for not praying as hard as he did. Now she gets hurt in a wagon accident and Barrister insists that they pray for her to recover and holds off anyone with a different opinion at gunpoint. His wife asks Major Adams to get her a doctor. He sends Flint McCullough to the nearest two who finds the town is quarantined due to a smallpox epidemic! The young doctor there, played by Roger Smith, agrees to go to the Wagon Train. He's been inoculated but also takes a bath before leaving, while Flint has to remain in town for 24 hours after being inoculated.
The doctor is not only a doctor. His father was a minister and he engages in a battle of biblical quotations with Barrister, which he wins. Barrister allows him to examine his wife. He determines she has a broken rib which has penetrated some internal organs. (Was prayer going to extract the rib.) He has to operate but isn't sure if she will survive. They pray together and she does. McCullough shows up and the doctor insists that he must bathe before rejoining the train. Somehow Major Adams produces a bathtub and the last image is of Flint McCullough washing himself in a bathtub on the plains with no one in sight!
At one point in this episode, Major Adams tells his people "My job is to protect the rights of everybody here...No man has a right to condemn any other man's way of thinking. That's pretty much what the constitution says." You wonder what Ward Bond thought of this speech. He was very much in favor of the blacklisting of suspected Communists during the 1950's. I suspect he saw no contradiction because he viewed himself in opposition to a group famous for taking people's rights away in the countries they came to dominate.
The Major Adams story is important as a backstory for him, Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster and has a tear-jerking finale, a sort of western 'Camille'. There's a double flashback in volved. First we see the 'present' as Major Adams pauses the wagon train to visit the grave of his lost love, Rainie Webster. On a previous trip to California, he'd encountered her after a pre-war love affair that was broken up by his insistence that he had to continue serve the Union until the war was over. Here we find out that he first encountered Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster in the service when they were in his command and he was wounded and they rescued him. It appeared that his legs would be amputated but he refused, preferring to die whole. But he doesn't and they help in his rehabilitation, creating a life-long bond, among the three of them that paralleled the bond between Ward Bond, (irony noted), and Terry Wilson and Frank McGrath, (who play Hawks and Wooster), especially after Bond had injured his leg after being hit by a car in 1944.
In the next flashback, Rainie, (played by an appropriately skinny Virginia Grey), is going west to be with her brother's family and finds herself being romanced by an arrogant ex-Confederate Colonel played by that always intimidating bad guy, Douglas Kennedy. He climbs out of the stage and is helping Rainie out when he gets jostled by a drunk and gets in a fight with him, ending with the Colonel killing the guy with several bullets at close range, showing how ruthless he is. Major Adams is in town, this earlier wagon train nearby. He's shocked by the killing and the even more shocked to see Rainie there. He manages to re-establish his relationship with Rainie and agrees to take her to her brother's place but the Colonel tells him that he always gets what he wants. This results in the eventual violent confrontation that results in the demise of the Colonel. That would seem to create a happy ending but...Rainie has a cough that won't go away and sems to be getting worse. She knows she's dying but doesn't want Seth to know who she can just leave the train and Seth won't have to watch her die. But he finds out and she dies in his arms. Ward Bond's acting in this scene is superb. He's assuring Rainie that she will recover and that he will take her to California. He describes what a wonderful place it is, then says, "there's only one better - the place you are right now, Rainie". That's when we find out she has died. Just a great scene.
Bill Hawks wife appears in this episode for the last time and is never mentioned again. You have to wonder: did she accompany Bill on a series of treks to California? You would think they would have settled down at some point.
Charles Maury, (played by Charles Drake), is the head of 'Maury's Raiders', a Quantrill-like group that won't admit the Civil War is over and raids settlements and wagon trains to raise money to get it started again. Except the men have started to realize that that's an unlikely result and just like the idea of taking what they want for themselves. On the wagon train is a young southern woman, (Wanda Hendrix) who longs for the old times and idolizes her gallant southern heroes who defended the world she had lived in. When Maury uses a clever ruse, (they have obtained a consignment of federal uniforms), to put his gang in position to rob the train, Hendrix goes with them. She falls for Maury and he for her. But she finds the other men to be more "animals" than gallant heroes and escapes back to the train. Meanwhile the men rebel against Maury and have a new leader. They ride off, leaving Maury and one loyal man behind. Sadly, they realize the war is over, lover the Confederate flag and ride to the wagon train to surrender Maury's sword to Adams. He decides to follow the follow the example of his hero General grant and 'grant' Maury amnesty, allowing him and his man to joining the train, change their names and for Maury to continue his romance with Hendrix, both of them much the wiser.
If Maury is really like Quantrill, Major Adams wouldn't have been so generous and would not have bene the one to make such a decision about him.
These are all good episodes. Daniel Barrister is a fiery Christian Scientist, (he's played by Charles Bickford, who is a fiery anything), who insists that that the only thing that can cure physical problems is prayer and if some one dies, it's because you allowed your belief in prayer to falter. He and his wife had a daughter, (prior to the action of this episode), who died and he blames it on his wife for not praying as hard as he did. Now she gets hurt in a wagon accident and Barrister insists that they pray for her to recover and holds off anyone with a different opinion at gunpoint. His wife asks Major Adams to get her a doctor. He sends Flint McCullough to the nearest two who finds the town is quarantined due to a smallpox epidemic! The young doctor there, played by Roger Smith, agrees to go to the Wagon Train. He's been inoculated but also takes a bath before leaving, while Flint has to remain in town for 24 hours after being inoculated.
The doctor is not only a doctor. His father was a minister and he engages in a battle of biblical quotations with Barrister, which he wins. Barrister allows him to examine his wife. He determines she has a broken rib which has penetrated some internal organs. (Was prayer going to extract the rib.) He has to operate but isn't sure if she will survive. They pray together and she does. McCullough shows up and the doctor insists that he must bathe before rejoining the train. Somehow Major Adams produces a bathtub and the last image is of Flint McCullough washing himself in a bathtub on the plains with no one in sight!
At one point in this episode, Major Adams tells his people "My job is to protect the rights of everybody here...No man has a right to condemn any other man's way of thinking. That's pretty much what the constitution says." You wonder what Ward Bond thought of this speech. He was very much in favor of the blacklisting of suspected Communists during the 1950's. I suspect he saw no contradiction because he viewed himself in opposition to a group famous for taking people's rights away in the countries they came to dominate.
The Major Adams story is important as a backstory for him, Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster and has a tear-jerking finale, a sort of western 'Camille'. There's a double flashback in volved. First we see the 'present' as Major Adams pauses the wagon train to visit the grave of his lost love, Rainie Webster. On a previous trip to California, he'd encountered her after a pre-war love affair that was broken up by his insistence that he had to continue serve the Union until the war was over. Here we find out that he first encountered Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster in the service when they were in his command and he was wounded and they rescued him. It appeared that his legs would be amputated but he refused, preferring to die whole. But he doesn't and they help in his rehabilitation, creating a life-long bond, among the three of them that paralleled the bond between Ward Bond, (irony noted), and Terry Wilson and Frank McGrath, (who play Hawks and Wooster), especially after Bond had injured his leg after being hit by a car in 1944.
In the next flashback, Rainie, (played by an appropriately skinny Virginia Grey), is going west to be with her brother's family and finds herself being romanced by an arrogant ex-Confederate Colonel played by that always intimidating bad guy, Douglas Kennedy. He climbs out of the stage and is helping Rainie out when he gets jostled by a drunk and gets in a fight with him, ending with the Colonel killing the guy with several bullets at close range, showing how ruthless he is. Major Adams is in town, this earlier wagon train nearby. He's shocked by the killing and the even more shocked to see Rainie there. He manages to re-establish his relationship with Rainie and agrees to take her to her brother's place but the Colonel tells him that he always gets what he wants. This results in the eventual violent confrontation that results in the demise of the Colonel. That would seem to create a happy ending but...Rainie has a cough that won't go away and sems to be getting worse. She knows she's dying but doesn't want Seth to know who she can just leave the train and Seth won't have to watch her die. But he finds out and she dies in his arms. Ward Bond's acting in this scene is superb. He's assuring Rainie that she will recover and that he will take her to California. He describes what a wonderful place it is, then says, "there's only one better - the place you are right now, Rainie". That's when we find out she has died. Just a great scene.
Bill Hawks wife appears in this episode for the last time and is never mentioned again. You have to wonder: did she accompany Bill on a series of treks to California? You would think they would have settled down at some point.
Charles Maury, (played by Charles Drake), is the head of 'Maury's Raiders', a Quantrill-like group that won't admit the Civil War is over and raids settlements and wagon trains to raise money to get it started again. Except the men have started to realize that that's an unlikely result and just like the idea of taking what they want for themselves. On the wagon train is a young southern woman, (Wanda Hendrix) who longs for the old times and idolizes her gallant southern heroes who defended the world she had lived in. When Maury uses a clever ruse, (they have obtained a consignment of federal uniforms), to put his gang in position to rob the train, Hendrix goes with them. She falls for Maury and he for her. But she finds the other men to be more "animals" than gallant heroes and escapes back to the train. Meanwhile the men rebel against Maury and have a new leader. They ride off, leaving Maury and one loyal man behind. Sadly, they realize the war is over, lover the Confederate flag and ride to the wagon train to surrender Maury's sword to Adams. He decides to follow the follow the example of his hero General grant and 'grant' Maury amnesty, allowing him and his man to joining the train, change their names and for Maury to continue his romance with Hendrix, both of them much the wiser.
If Maury is really like Quantrill, Major Adams wouldn't have been so generous and would not have bene the one to make such a decision about him.
