By 1962 Warner Brothers Television, which had flooded the
ABC airwaves with a plethora of westerns and hip detective series in the late
1950s, was largely getting out of the westerns business as the genre's once
dominant popularity was fading fast. Colt
.45 had bit the dust in June 1960, Sugarfoot
was jettisoned in 1961, and by the fall of 1962 Maverick, Bronco, and Lawman would join them on the junk heap.
Only Cheyenne, Warner's first adult
western debuting in 1955, would continue for one more abbreviated season consisting
of 13 episodes that all ran in the fall of 1962, to be replaced by a new
Warners western, The Dakotas, which
would take its time slot and run for 19 episodes through mid-May of 1963. Though
Cheyenne and Maverick were the bigger draws and have won greater acclaim, Lawman was the best of the bunch in
tackling adult themes with unflinching honesty.
Of course, not every episode was a gem, and as we have
mentioned in our two previous posts on the series, Warner Brothers' business
model of recycling plots from its movie catalog as well as between its own
series produced a number of shoddy retreads. A case in point is 1962's opening
episode "The Locket" (January 7, 1962) in which a former employee of
Lily returns to Laramie unconscious in a bushwhacked stagecoach followed by a
man claiming to be her husband who turns out to be an outlaw searching for
robbery spoils hidden by the woman's deceased husband. Even at 30 minutes, this
episode drags to its too-obvious conclusion. But then the series embarks on a
string of tales that undercut heroic ideals, the very foundation on which many
westerns are built.
"A Friend of the Family" (January 14, 1962)
centers around a good friend of Johnny McKay's late father, Joe Henny, whom
McKay had even called Uncle Joe though he was no blood relative. McKay runs
across Henny when the latter is part of a bank-robbing gang that Troop and
McKay foil, with Henny being captured in the aftermath. When McKay has to help
Troop transport Henny to Cheyenne for trial, he lets his sympathies get the
better of his judgment, which Henny exploits to his advantage by saying he was
a victim of circumstances getting mixed up with the rest of the gang and
constantly referring to himself as an old man. McKay's sympathy for Henny makes
him let his guard down and allows Henny to escape, with Marshal Troop even
accusing McKay of wanting him to escape, though he stops short of accusing
McKay of conspiring with Henny. To atone for his error, McKay has to hunt down
and eventually fatally shoot his "uncle," a stern lesson that a
lawman can't play favorites with his captives. McKay gets another lesson in
"The Tarnished Badge" (January 21, 1962) when former Laramie marshal
Jess Bridges rides into town with two other men who pretend to be his prisoners
but are actually there to help him rob the stage about to leave town. Troop is
ready with hidden armed men lining the street, but when Bridges manages to
escape with a bullet wound and McKay tracks him down in the wilderness, he
again is too trusting and Bridges is able to take him prisoner by knocking him
out with a rock to the head. Bridges is able to redeem himself somewhat after
taking McKay to his hideout where his other two partners figure out McKay's
true identity and force Bridges to choose between them and McKay. After all the
outlaws wind up killing each other, McKay tells Troop that Bridges saved his
life and that he was a good lawman, but clearly the man that McKay once
idolized didn't live up to his reputation after turning in his badge.
Troop has a reckoning with one of his heroes in "The
Long Gun" (March 4, 1962) when renowned Marshal Ben Wyatt shows up in
Laramie and takes a hotel room overlooking the main street because he expects
the brothers of an outlaw he killed to come looking for him, and he plans to
shoot them down on sight. Troop says he can't allow such an extra-judicial
killing to happen, but Wyatt says that Troop is powerless to stop him because
he hasn't yet committed a crime. Troop then reveals that Wyatt was the man who
inspired him to become a lawman himself, serving as Wyatt's deputy when he was
just starting out. He asks when Wyatt became afraid of facing off against
anyone, and Wyatt replies that the man Troop admired is dead. But while Wyatt
ruminates, Troop throws his long rifle out into the street just as the brothers
come riding up, and Wyatt is then forced to face off against them without
cover, finally living up to the memory that Troop cherished of his bravery. Even
though Wyatt has restored his standing, Troop has surely learned that even
heroes have their weaknesses.
The series also pokes fun at the myth of the western gunman
in "No Contest" (February 4, 1962) with a recycled plot about an
eastern tinhorn coming west and thinking it will be easy to live out the wild
west fantasies he has read about in sensationalized news stories and pulp
novels. But this episode gives the tread-worn plot a couple of twists in that
the tinhorn is McKay's cousin, and he is the spitting image of Billy the Kid,
which initially makes those who accidentally bump into him unusually willing to
back down and apologize. The deference shown him makes the cousin, Jeff Allen,
start to think that perhaps he could be a respected and feared gunman like his
lookalike, so he purchases a gun and belt and begins practicing and then seems
to seek out confrontation to put his new-found feeling of invincibility to the
test, all the while ignoring McKay's warnings that gunfights in real life don't
play out like they do in popular literature. It takes Troop, sensing that Allen
is about to get his comeuppance from a boyfriend whose girl has been flirting
with Allen, to slap some sense into him and then stare him down when he
threatens to draw on Troop. Allen finally realizes his folly, but his epiphany
is a little too quick to be convincing, even though the plot's larger point
about the gap between wild west fiction and reality is still valid.
Speaking of tall tales of the wild west, perhaps the most
unsettling episode with uncomfortable parallels today is "The Man Behind the
News" (May 13, 1962) about newspaper publisher Luther Boardman who moves
to Laramie from Kansas City and buys the local paper. His first act as
publisher is to summon Troop and tell him how to do his job so that he can
sensationalize it in his paper, and his office is lined with photos and pistols
from famous outlaw gunman, a fetish of his. He even admits that he left Kansas
City because it became too tame, and when Troop fails to play his game, he instigates
a standoff between Troop and dim-witted gunman Mort Peters, goading Peters into
believing that Troop has insulted and mistreated him and that he must demand
satisfaction. Unable to convince either Boardman or Peters that they are being
foolish, Troop finally gives them the standoff they want, only Peters is too
inebriated to do any damage and gets a bullet in the shoulder from Troop while
his own shot grazes Boardman trying to photograph the spectacle, and the
newsman shows himself to be a complete coward despite his love of violence. While
the story makes a valid point about the glorification of violence and the
business of newspapers in selling copies and advertising, the story and
characters are too farcical to have any real credibility, and setting up the press
as "the enemy of the people" is a dangerous game--one might argue as
dangerous as soliciting a gun battle.
Another episode with ironic contemporary parallels is
"The Doctor" (May 6, 1962) in which Troop travels to Casper to bring
back a hostile witness for a trial in Laramie. Along the way the stagecoach
driver becomes very ill, and when examined by alcoholic former doctor Alexander
Burrell, he is found to have the plague. Burrell says that they must quarantine
themselves at the stage waystation between the two towns for four days, but his
recommendation is met with anger by the other passengers. They try to discredit
his opinion because of his alcoholism, and allow their own priorities--one
woman is determined to get to Laramie on time to meet her future mail-order
husband, afraid he will call the wedding off if she is late--to cloud their
judgment. But Troop follows the science, or at least the possibility that the
doctor is right, and orders everyone to stay put, though they nearly break out
when he has to leave to chase down the delirious driver when the latter escapes
out the window. At episode's end when the stage finally makes it to Laramie
after the four-day delay, McKay tells Troop that there was a significant
outbreak of plague in Casper but so far nothing has popped up in Laramie.
The series closes out its final episode, "The
Witness" (June 24, 1962), with another tale about people using their own
misguided priorities to upend another pillar of society--the legal system. When
Nathan Adams returns home and finds his wife shot dead, he flies into a rage,
and his sister-in-law Anna Prentiss invents a story about an intruder being the
murderer, which sets Adams on a course of retribution. Meanwhile sketch artist
Beebee Williams sees the situation as an opportunity to get revenge on rancher
Jim Martin, who mistakenly identified Williams' brother as a bank robber years
before with the brother being lynched by an angry mob. So Williams claims he
saw Martin fleeing the scene at the time of the murder when he was actually out
mending fences on his ranch with no one around to back his alibi. When Prentiss
backtracks on the witness stand about being sure that Martin is the killer, he
is acquitted, but this only prompts Adams to try to force him into a gunfight
so that he can avenge his wife's death on his own terms. Once Troop learns from
Martin the reason for Williams' animosity, he senses things do not add up and
is finally able to get Prentiss to admit that she was the one who shot Adams'
wife accidentally. When she relays this to Adams just before he is about to
draw on Martin, Adams is shell-shocked at the mistake he nearly made and walks
away stunned, while Williams also must face that he nearly caused the murder of
a man who made an honest though tragic mistake. Rather than wallowing in
extra-judicial revenge fantasies that have plagued television and the movies
for decades, Lawman's Troop, while
admittedly an unreal, larger-than-life hero, concludes by noting that people
say revenge is sweet, but when Williams got just a whiff of it, it made him
sick. While Lawman may not have had
quite the savage realism of Sam Peckinpah's The Westerner nor the array of more fully developed characters found in Gunsmoke, it still holds up remarkably
well for a western of its era, and certainly sits atop Warner Brothers' western
universe.
All four seasons have been released on DVD by Warner Home Video.
The Actors
For the biographies for John Russell, Peter Brown, Peggie
Castle, Clancy Cooper, Dan Sheridan, and Harry Cheshire, see the 1960 post on Lawman. For the biographies of Grady
Sutton and Vinton Hayworth, see the 1961 post on Lawman.
Notable Guest Stars
Season 4, Episode 17, "The Locket": Robert Colbert
(shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1961 post on Maverick) plays incognito outlaw Breen. Julie Van Zandt (ex-wife of
director Richard L. Bare) plays Lily's former employee Marcia Smith.
Season 4, Episode 18, "A Friend of the Family": Frank
Ferguson (Gus Broeberg on My Friend
Flicka, Eli Carson on Peyton Place,
Judge Gurney on Temple Houston, and
Dr. Barton Stuart on Petticoat Junction)
plays friend of Johnny McKay's father Joe Henny. Gertrude Flynn (appeared in War and Peace, Rome Adventure, and Funny
Girl and played Anna Sawyer on Days
of Our Lives) plays bank customer Miss Selma.
Season 4, Episode 19, "The Vintage": Kevin Hagen (John
Colton on Yancy Derringer, Inspector
Dobbs Kobick on Land of the Giants,
and Dr. Hiram Baker on Little House on
the Prairie) plays drunken brawler Kulp. Richard Reeves (Mr. Murphy on Date With the Angels) plays his friend
Joe.
Season 4, Episode 20, "The Tarnished Badge": Lon
Chaney, Jr. (shown on the right, starred in The Wolfman, Of Mice and Men, High Noon, The Ghost of
Frankenstein, The Curse of Dracula,
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, and
many others, and played Chief Eagle Shadow on Pistols 'n' Petticoats and Chingachgook on Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans) plays former Laramie marshal
Jess Bridges. Jackie Searl (child actor who appeared in Tom Sawyer (1930), Huckleberry
Finn (1931), Alice in Wonderland
(1933), Great Expectations(1934), and
Little Lord Fauntleroy) plays his
accomplice Slick. Marshall Reed (Inspector Fred Asher on The Lineup) plays another accomplice Jake.
Season 4, Episode 21, "No
Contest": Richard Rogers (shown on the left, played Walter Tell on William Tell) plays Johnny's cousin Jeff Allen. Dawn Wells (Mary
Ann Summers on Gilligan's Island) plays
town flirt Elly Stratton. Guy Stockwell (brother of Dean Stockwell, starred in Beau Geste, It's Alive, and Airport 1975
and played Chris Parker on Adventures in
Paradise) plays her boyfriend Jib Willis.
Season 4, Episode 22, "Change of Venue": Philip
Carey (shown on the right, starred in I Was a Communist for
the FBI, Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, Calamity Jane, Mister Roberts,
Dead Ringer, and Three For Texas and played Lt. Michael Rhodes on Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers, Philip
Marlowe on Philip Marlowe, Capt.
Edward Parmalee on Laredo, and Asa
Buchanan on One Life to Live) plays alleged
killer Barron Shaw. Jan Shepard (appeared in King Creole, Attack of the
Giant Leeches, and Paradise, Hawaiian
Style and played Nurse Betty on Dr.
Christian) plays conspirator Madelyn Chase. Roy Barcroft (Col. Logan on The Adventures of Spin and Marty and Roy
on Gunsmoke) plays his prisoner guard
Luke Tennant. Larry J. Blake (played the unnamed jailer on Yancy Derringer and Tom Parnell on Saints and Sinners) plays concerned citizen Mr. Parker.
Season 4, Episode 23, "The Holdout": Arch Johnson
(shown on the left, starred in Somebody Up There Likes Me,
G.I. Blues, and The Cheyenne Social Club and played Gus Honochek on The Asphalt Jungle and Cmdr. Wivenhoe on
Camp Runamuck) plays vigilante leader
Logan. Larry Ward (Marshal Frank Ragan on The
Dakotas) plays storekeeper Blake Stevens. Addison Richards (starred in Boys Town, They Made Her a Spy, Flying Tigers,
and The Deerslayer and played Doc
Calhoun on Trackdown and Doc Landy on
The Deputy) plays town council leader
Ben Thurston.
Season 4, Episode 24, "The Barber": William
Fawcett (shown on the right, played Clayton on Duffy's Tavern,
Marshal George Higgins on The Adventures
of Rin Tin Tin, and Pete Wilkey on Fury) plays original Laramie barber Ed
Carruthers. Wendell Holmes (appeared in Good
Day for a Hanging, Because They're
Young, Elmer Gantry, and The Absent Minded Professor) plays bank
robber Frank MacStrowd. Gail Bonney (Goodwife Martin on Space Patrol and Madeline Schweitzer on December Bride) plays homesteader's wife Mrs. Wilson. Owen Bush
(Ben on Shane, John Belson on Sirota's Court, and Crimshaw on Our House) plays homesteader Will
Puffin.
Season 4, Episode 25, "The Long Gun": John Dehner
(shown on the left, played Duke Williams on The Roaring '20's,
Commodore Cecil Wyntoon on The Baileys of
Balboa, Morgan Starr on The Virginian,
Cyril Bennett on The Doris Day Show,
Dr. Charles Cleveland Claver on The New
Temperatures Rising Show, Barrett Fears on Big Hawaii, Marshal Edge Troy on Young Maverick, Lt. Joseph Broggi on Enos, Hadden Marshall on Bare
Essence, and Billy Joe Erskine on The
Colbys) plays renowned lawman Marshal Ben Wyatt. Robert "Buzz"
Henry (starred in Buzzy Rides the Range,
Buzzy and the Phantom Pinto, and Mr. Celebrity) plays one of his victim's
brothers. George Dunn (Jessie Williams on Cimarron
City and the Sheriff on Camp Runamuck)
plays hunter Ed Love.
Season 4, Episode 26, "Clootey Hutter": Virginia
Gregg (shown on the right, starred in Dragnet, Crime in the Streets, Operation Petticoat and was the voice of
Norma Bates in Psycho and the voice
of Maggie Belle Klaxon on Calvin and the
Colonel) plays widow rancher Clootey Hutter. Jack Elam (Deputy J.D. Smith
on The Dakotas, George Taggart on Temple Houston, Zack Wheeler on The Texas Wheelers, and Uncle Alvin
Stevenson on Easy Street) plays her
suitor Paul Henry. Jack Hogan (starred in The
Bonnie Parker Story, Paratroop
Command, and The Cat Burglar and
played Kirby on Combat!, Sgt. Jerry
Miller on Adam-12, Chief Ranger Jack
Moore on Sierra, and Judge Smithwood
on Jake and the Fatman) plays his
brother Earl. Justin Smith (appeared in The
Jazz Singer, Wild on the Beach,
and The Candidate) plays busybody Ed
Cramer.
Season 4, Episode 27, "Heritage of Hate": Roy
Roberts (Capt. Simon P. Huxley on The
Gale Storm Show, Admiral Rogers on McHale's
Navy, John Cushing on The Beverly
Hillbillies, Mr. Cheever on The Lucy
Show, Frank Stephens on Bewitched,
Norman Curtis on Petticoat Junction,
and Mr. Botkin/Bodkin on Gunsmoke)
plays vengeful rancher John Kemper. Ken Mayer (Maj. Robbie Robertson on Space Patrol) plays his ranch hand Moss.
Kathie Browne (shown on the left, played Angie Dow on Hondo and
was Darren McGavin's second wife) plays Kemper's daughter-in-law Laurie.
William Joyce (Kellam Chandler on Days of
Our Lives) plays ex-con Bill Fells. Frank Albertson (starred in Alice Adams, Man Made Monster, and It's a
Wonderful Life and played Mr. Cooper on Bringing
Up Buddy) plays impressionable citizen Henry Bildy. Grace Albertson (second
wife of Frank Albertson, played Ethel Robinson on Our Private World) plays his wife Sarah.
Season 4, Episode 28, "Mountain Man": Med Flory (shown on the right, played
clarinet in the Ray Anthony orchestra and founded and played alto sax in the
group Super Sax, appeared in Gun Street,
The Nutty Professor (1963), and The Gumball Rally, and played Sheriff
Mike McBride on High Mountain Rangers)
plays amorous mountain man Lex Buckman. William Fawcett (see "The
Barber" above) returns as barber Ed Carruthers. Rusty Wescoatt (Joe the
bartender on Trackdown) plays a
blacksmith.
Season 4, Episode 29, "The Bride": William Mims (see
the biography section for the 1960 post on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays con man Frank Farnum. Jo Morrow (appeared
in Gidget, Our Man in Havana, and The 3
Worlds of Gulliver) plays his niece Melanie Wells. L.Q. Jones (Beldon on The Virginian, Sheriff Lew Wallace on The Yellow Rose, and Nathan Wayne on Renegade) plays wealthy rancher Ollie
Earnshaw. Harry Strang (played the sheriff on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin) plays stage driver Ed Lecky.
Season 4, Episode 30, "The Wanted Man": Marie Windsor
(shown on the left, starred in Outpost in Morocco, Dakota Lil, Cat-Women of the Moon, Swamp
Women, and The Day Mars Invaded Earth)
plays pregnant wife Ann Jesse. Jan Stine (Roger on The Donna Reed Show and Eddie on The Virginian) plays her son Ben. Dick Foran (Fire Chief Ed
Washburne on Lassie and Slim on O.K., Crackerby!) plays her fugitive
husband Frank. Alan Baxter (appeared in Saboteur,
Close-Up, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Paint
Your Wagon) plays bounty hunter Joe Street. Ralph Moody (see the biography
section for the 1961 post on The Rifleman)
plays Laramie physician Doc Greer.
Season 4, Episode 31, "Sunday": Richard Evans (Paul
Hanley on Peyton Place) plays captured
killer Billy Deal. Andrew Duggan (shown on the right, played Cal Calhoun on Bourbon Street Beat, George Rose on Room for One More, Major Gen. Ed Britt on 12 O'Clock High, and Murdoch Lancer on Lancer) plays Dakota outlaw Frank Boone. Owen Orr (Wally Blanchard
on No Time for Sergeants) plays his
henchman Jim Young. Robert "Buzz" Henry (see "The Long Gun"
above) plays his henchman Wid.
Season 4, Episode 32, "The Youngest": Olive Carey
(see the biography section for the 1960 post on Lock Up) plays bully matriarch Ma Martin. Joseph Gallison (appeared
in All the Young Men, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, and PT 109 and played Bill Matthews on Another World and Dr. Neil Curtis on Days of Our Lives) plays her youngest
son Jim, Jr.
Season 4, Episode 33, "Cort": Kevin Hagen (shown on the left, see
"The Vintage" above) plays terminally ill Cort Evers. Harry Carey,
Jr. (starred in Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Mister Roberts, and The Searchers and played Bill Burnett on The Adventures of Spin and Marty) plays his brother Mitch. Ralph
Moody (see "The Wanted Man" above) plays Laramie physician Doc Jessup.
Season 4, Episode 34, "The Doctor": Whit Bissell (starred
in He Walked by Night, Creature From the Black Lagoon, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and Hud and played Bert Loomis on Bachelor Father, Calvin Hanley on Peyton Place, and Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk
on The Time Tunnel) plays alcoholic
former doctor Alexander Burrell. Sherwood Price (Gen. Jeb Stuart on The Gray Ghost) plays hostile witness
Will Evans. Charles Lane (appeared in The
Milky Way, Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington, The Lady Is Willing, The Music Man, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, and The
Gnome-Mobile and played Mr. Fosdick on Dear
Phoebe, Homer Bedloe on Petticoat
Junction, Foster Phinney on The
Beverly Hillbillies, Dale Busch on Karen,
and Judge Anthony Petrillo on Soap)
plays his attorney Morris Weeks. Eloise Hardt (shown on the right, played Karen Hadley on The Dennis O'Keefe Show) plays bride-to-be
Cissy Lawson. Harry Strang (see "The Bride" above) plays stage driver
Randy Whedon.
Season 4, Episode 35, "The Man Behind the News": Clinton
Sundberg (appeared in The Kissing Bandit,
The Barkleys of Broadway, In the Good Old Summertime, and Annie Get Your Gun) plays newspaper
publisher Luther Boardman. Hal Baylor (Jenkins on Rawhide and Mercury on Batman)
plays gunman Mort Peters. Peggy Mondo (shown on the left, played Mama Vitale on To Rome With Love) player Peters' girlfriend Flora.
Season 4, Episode 36, "Get Out of Town": Bill
Williams (shown on the right, see the biography section for the 1960 post on Assignment: Underwater) plays casino owner Jim Bushrod. John
Hubbard (starred in One Million, B.C.,
The Mummy's Tomb, and What's Buzzin', Cousin? and played Mr.
Brown on The Mickey Rooney Show, Col.
U. Charles Barker on Don't Call Me
Charlie, and Ted Gaynor on Family
Affair) plays his partner Sy. Tim Graham (Homer Ede on National Velvet) plays Laramie's top businessman Amos Hall. Tom
London (starred in Six-Shootin' Sheriff,
Song of the Buckaroo, and Riders in the Sky) plays his employee Pete. Clyde Howdy (Hank
Whitfield on Lassie) plays bank
teller Joe.
Season 4, Episode 37, "The Actor": John Carradine
(shown on the left, starred in Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, The Ten Commandments, and Sex
Kittens Go to College and played Gen. Joshua McCord on Branded) plays alcoholic actor Geoffrey Hendon. Mary Anderson (starred
in Bahama Passage, The Song of Bernadette, and Lifeboat and played Catherine Harrington
on Peyton Place) plays his pursuer
Martha Carson. Warren J. Kemmerling (Judge Rense on How the West Was Won) plays her husband Bill. Harry Harvey (Sheriff
Tom Blodgett on The Roy Rogers Show,
Mayor George Dixon on Man Without a Gun,
and Houghton Stott on It's a Man's World)
plays physician Dr. Wilson.
Season 4, Episode 38, "Explosion": Gary Vinson (Chris
Higbee on The Roaring '20's, George
Christopher on McHale's Navy, and
Sheriff Harold Skiles on Pistols 'n' Petticoats)
plays head injury victim Jess Billings. Denver Pyle (Ben Thompson on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp,
Grandpa Tarleton on Tammy, Briscoe
Darling on The Andy Griffith Show,
Buck Webb on The Doris Day Show, Mad
Jack on The Life and Times of Grizzly
Adams, and Uncle Jesse on The Dukes
of Hazzard) plays his attacker Sam Brackett. Gilman Rankin (Deputy Charlie
Riggs on Tombstone Territory) plays
Brackett associate Paul Dales. John Qualen (appeared in The Three Musketeers(1935), His
Girl Friday, The Grapes of Wrath,
Angels Over Broadway, Casablanca, Anatomy of a Murder, and A
Patch of Blue) plays Laramie physician Doc Shay. Marie Blake (shown on the right, appeared in Love Finds Andy Hardy, Li'l Abner, and Mourning Becomes Electra, played Sally the receptionist in 14 Dr.
Kildare and Dr. Gillespie features, and played Nurse Tacky on Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal and
Grandmama on The Addams Family) plays
homesteader's wife Mrs. Murdoch.
Season 4, Episode 39, "Jailbreak": Peter Breck (Clay
Culhane on Black Saddle, Doc Holliday
on Maverick, and Nick Barkley on The Big Valley) plays jailed outlaw Pete
Bole. Pamela Austin (shown on the left, starred in Hootenanny
Hoot, Kissin' Cousins, and The Perils of Pauline) plays his
girlfriend Little Britches. James Griffith (Aaron Adams on Trackdown and Deputy Tom Ferguson on U.S. Marshal) plays jailbreak planner Heracles Snead. Frank
Ferguson (see "A Friend of the Family" above) plays Casper Sheriff
Howard Callaghan. Mickey Simpson (Boley on Captain
David Grief) plays Snead henchman Murph.
Season 4, Episode 40, "The Unmasked": Dabbs Greer
(shown on the right, see the biography section for the 1960 post on Gunsmoke) plays hotel owner Joe Brockaway. Angela Greene (Tess
Trueheart on Dick Tracy) plays his
wife Marian. Charles Maxwell (Special Agent Joe Carey on I Led 3 Lives and was the voice of the radio announcer on Gilligan's Island) plays ex-Confederate
bounty hunter Samuel Davidson. Barry Atwater (Dr. John Prentice on General Hospital) plays his partner
Carter Banks. Jack Albertson (starred in Days
of Wine and Roses, Kissin' Cousins,
The Flim-Flam Man, and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
and played Lt. Harry Evans on The Thin
Man, Walter Burton on Room for One
More, Lt. Cmdr. Virgil Stoner on Ensign
O'Toole, Paul Fenton on Mister Ed,
and Ed Brown on Chico and the Man)
plays elixir salesman Doc Peters.
Season 4, Episode 41, "The Witness": Morgan
Woodward (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1960 post on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays vengeful widower Nathan
Adams. Sarah Selby (Aunt Gertrude on The
Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure, Lucille Vanderlip on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,
Miss Thomas on Father Knows Best, and
Ma Smalley on Gunsmoke) plays his
sister-in-law Anna Prentiss. Jay Novello (Juan Greco on Zorro and Mayor Mario Lugatto on McHale's Navy) plays sketch artist Beebee Williams. John Agar
(starred in Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Sands of Iwo Jima, Woman of the North Country, Revenge
of the Creature, The Mole People,
and Attack of the Puppet People)
plays rancher Jim Martin.
