In the early part of my life, I had very little time for Westerns - and even less for television Westerns. When I saw Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST about 50 years ago, in 1970 second run, I was enormously impressed; it was a turning point for me, but it did not make other Westerns more available to me. I actually made a point of not seeking out Leone's other work until another ten years had passed, just using that time to absorb OUATITW again and again, whenever an opportunity arose - sadly, mostly on television until the 1990s, with that climactic zoom into Charles Bronson's eyes had to make a pan & scan choice between one eye or the other. That said, once I got into my 30s and 40s, Westerns began making more sense to me as a genre, and directors like John Ford, Budd Boetticher, Sam Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, Joseph H. Lewis, Monte Hellmann, and particularly Anthony Mann began showing me the way to classic Westerns and also those special examples that Kevin Grant and Clay Hodgkiss call the "renegade" Westerns.
My interest in television Westerns has deepened from the time I realized they were a place to find some great performances by actors and character actors hiding in plain sight. THE RIFLEMAN had always been something of an exception to my general lack of interest because it had a young character I could identify with, but as the years passed I developed additional interest in WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, THE REBEL, LAWMAN, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL and that wonderfully baroque example, YANCY DERRINGER.
In the back of my mind, as this education proceeded, were the imposing figures of the two biggest TV Westerns, BONANZA and GUNSMOKE, for which I had never felt any particular interest. I've seen my share of BONANZA episodes and, while I'm sure there must be fine performances along the very long way, the formula of that show just doesn't work for me - it may have something to do with the lead characters' casting and it may also have something to do with it all being in color. Black-and-white seems so essential to my appreciation of this world in which so much is said about a character by whether they wear a white hat or a black hat.
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| John Dehner in "Ash." |
Decided to jump into the complete GUNSMOKE set with an 8th season episode called "Ash" that I'd seen on the Westerns Channel several years back. John Dehner is one of my favorite actors and I had been blown away by his performance.
I was this time too. For all the times I've seen him--heroic, villainous, comedic--I don't recall ever seeing him quite like this.
Dehner plays a rowdy rough-edged buffalo hunter with a lot of heart who decides to open a freight business with an equally rough and tumble trapper (Anthony Caruso). A blow on the head for Dehner's character puts the skids on things and when he wakes he's a different person--surly, cold, grim. Thanks to Dehner and director Harry Harris it's a fascinating study of a Jekyll-Hyde sort where something buried within the man's psyche has come to the surface.
If I were still writing my "Star Turn" column for Video Watchdog I may well have covered this performance. Dehner is very much in control of the subtle shades on display and there's an unpredictability to his work that keeps us on edge. He makes some unusual choices and by doing so commands our attention. Dehner manages such amazing subtlety it's like a camera-acting master class.
I was captivated by what Larry had written and happened to mention to him in my reply that I had always sort of missed the boat with GUNSMOKE. Learning this, Larry made me a spontaneous gift of an introductory assortment of no-longer-needed DVD-Rs he had recorded from Encore's Western Channel, along with a now-spare set of Volumes 1 and 2 of Season 11. I promptly dipped in and recognized that these were indeed a profound gift.
I've been watching at least an episode each evening since that time. I haven't written about everything I've watched, and nothing really at the depth these programs deserve, but I thought my readers here might like to have a peek at my process of discovery. Here are some of my early notes on GUNSMOKE, which I may have treated here and there to some additional polish. Perhaps they will stoke your interest in exploring this filmed legacy as well:
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| Virginia Gregg and James Arness in "Phoebe Strunk." |
Since learning that my knowledge of GUNSMOKE was nearly nil, Larry Blamire has been providing me with some essential episodes - and I must say I'm impressed. My problem with GUNSMOKE was always a persistent conviction that James Arness, Amanda Blake, and Dennis Weaver were just not very interesting in their roles. Someone like John Russell in LAWMAN or Chuck Connors in THE RIFLEMAN - now those were and are top drawer Western heroes! Arness's Marshall Dillon never did it for me... but thanks to Larry's gift, I am learning that Arness, Blake, and Weaver were the binding, the framing device for episodes that told stories often involving the people who live or ride through Dodge City. I've watched a few of these, with great appreciation for guest performers like John Dehner and Strother Martin and their respective episodes, but last night's viewing - "Phoebe Strunk" (Season 8, Episode 9) - was especially powerful stuff. Virginia Gregg starred as a completely deglamorized, pipe-smoking, face-slapping, mother of a murderous brood of overgrown boys (including Don McGowan and COMBAT!'s Dick Peabody) who rob a farmhouse, leaving a couple murdered and their only daughter (Joan Freeman) orphaned. She is taken in by a kindly couple (IN COLD BLOOD's John McLiam and a very welcome Phyllis Coates) who want to adopt her, but history repeats itself when the Strunk boys can't get that pretty little girl out of their heads and they abduct her. Director Andrew V. McLaglan keeps a violent story presentable without pulling any punches, and Marshall Dillon has some welcome help in pursuing justice with half-Indian companion Quint (Burt Reynolds). Full marks to writer John Meston (the show's creator) for a taut script and the cast are uniformly at their best. You can find it streaming.
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| John Drew Barrymore (right) and gang in "Seven Hours To Dawn." |
The best of last night’s GUNSMOKE viewing was the 11th season opener, “Seven Hours To Dawn.” A nattily-dressed, still-contemporary-looking John Drew Barrymore heads a professional army bandits who effectively isolate and take over Dodge City, milking it of all its citizens’ cash and valuables. In an attempt to ride out to get help, Matt Dillon is shot four times and presumed dead. It’s up to Festus and Doc to turn around a grim and seemingly hopeless situation. I’ve never seen Barrymore give a better performance than here, and the baleful situation ratchets its intensity steadily right up to the finish, giving all the principals a chance to shine more than usual dramatically. In the background there’s an early screen credit for Al Lettieri (THE GODFATHER), credited as “Al Lettier.”
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| Argumentative aces in the deck: Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen, Milburn Stone as Doc Adams. |
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| Slim Pickens and Brooke Bundy in "Sweet Billy." |
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| Anne Helm and John Drew Barrymore. |
When I saw that “One Killer On Ice” (Season 10, Episode 18) was directed by Joseph H. Lewis (GUN CRAZY), I had an inkling this would be something special. This was another guest star spot for John Drew Barrymore, who seems to be still wearing his WAR OF THE ZOMBIES beard while playing a charming Southern gentleman who has retired his sheriff’s badget to set out on the more lucrative life of a bounty hunter. He rides into Dodge, charms everyone but Matt (who has learned not to accept people on first impressions), and engages the Marshal to accompany him to where he’s secured a wanted desperado as his first bounty. (It would be too dangerous to bring him into Dodge and risk attack by the outlaw’s still-marauding kid brother and other gang members.) The brother is played by Dennis Hopper, already near the height of his powers, and it’s truly a shame that he and Barrymore have no proper scenes together. Hopper’s farmgirl flame is played by Anne Helm (THE MAGIC SWORD, THE COUCH), a complex sullen girl made amoral by a restrictive upbringing whose isolation and fantasies of escape are sorely disappointed. I still prefer Barrymore’s more overtly villainous, yet still charismatic, clean-shaven performance in “Seven Hours To Dawn” but this one may well be the richer and more dimensional; he turns out to be a villain here too, but due to a very delicate shading of immorality rather than something more operatically egregious. He doesn’t become fully-fledged as such till his last moments in the episode. It’s kind of a remarkable dramatic achievement for a show juggling so many interesting characters in less than an hour.
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| Festus susses out what Warren Oates, Zalman King and Bruce Dern might be up to. |
Another great Season 11 GUNSMOKE: “Ten Little Indians” (Episode 10). Outside of town, Matt is forced ot a threatening young gunman (Manuel Padilla, Jr.) and returns to Dodge to find the Long Branch Saloon playing host to three other notorious gunmen (get this: Bruce Dern, Warren Oates, and... Zalman King???), just biding their time and getting on each other’s nerves. The episode has already delivered everything it needs to, but the plot thickens. It seems they have all been lured to Dodge by a $25,000 price on the Marshal’s head. Unfortunately, these big names were all young ‘uns at the time, already brilliant and the sparks between Dern and Oates are incredible... but they are not the stars of the episode, which boils down to a bigger conflict between Nehemiah Persoff and John Marley. In looking at the packaging, guest stars were listed for the other shows on this disc: John Drew Barrymore, Forrest Tucker... but this one mentioned NO special points of interest, not even for the previous okay episode “Clayton Thaddeus Greenwood,” which featured Jack Elam as the spearhead of a cattle rustling gang and Paul Fix. Go figure.
(c) 2020 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
