Rawhide: The Captain's Wife (1962)
Season 4, Episode 14
4/10
Martha Ivers at a frontier Army fort: Why couldn't they be satisfied with Stanwyck as a formidable villain?
28 January 2024
Sadly, this episode demonstrates that the writers weren't content with having Barbara Stanwyck playing a power-behind-the-throne-hungry villain trying to manipulate her husband's military career to her own best advantage. That made for an interesting villain, one with no pesky human feelings to stop her from sacrificing her husband's troops to make him a "hero," and Stanwyck played that villain with her usual intensity and a chilling disregard for human life. However, the show wouldn't stop with defeating her character's insane quest for a bloody, murderous form of "glory." No, it had to send the message that her failing wasn't really her narcissistic ambition, but her hidden desire to have a "real man" make a "real woman" out of her by dominating and ruling her--which apparently all "real women" want.
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