User Reviews

Harry Speener is riding towards Dodge City to take a job as a bartender when he is thrown from his horse and breaks his leg. Along comes stranger Joe Harpe who stops and drags the heavyset Speener to a grove of trees, and gives him water. When Marshall Dillon and Chester ride up, at first Harpe is very defensive, drawing his gun. When he finds out Dillon is in fact a United States marshal, he apologizes and says his behavior was due to him carrying lots of money from a job he has just completed. The three of them help get Speener to Doc's office where he sets his leg, but says he will be on crutches for six weeks.

Speener complains he will not be able to work during this time. In fact he complains about everything, including how roughly Harpe handled him when he was trying to help him! Harpe could have just left him.

Harpe hangs around town for awhile, becomes well liked by the people of Dodge, and even offers to pay Speener's doctor bill! Then comes the bad news - Marshal Dillon gets some wanted posters in the mail, including one of Joe Harpe, wanted in Colorado for a bank robbery, dead or alive, five hundred dollars reward. Chester sees this too and they both think it is too bad, because Harpe seems like a good guy. But Matt must do his duty and arrest him. Speener finds out about this from an over talkative Chester, and when Matt goes to arrest Harpe, finds out Speener and Harpe left town together. Matt figures Speener warned Harpe because he had helped him, and now he is returning the favor by helping him escape.

Matt would be wrong. Speener does warn Harpe, but when he gets him out in the middle of nowhere, he shoots him in the back so he can collect the five hundred dollar reward money. Now what Speener did was completely legal, yet despicable. Especially when you figure Harpe told Speener it was the only time he ever broke the law, and he regrets what he did. Dillon tells Speener to take his reward and leave town, because even though Dillon claimed to be the one who shot Speener, he figures everybody will eventually see through the ruse and somebody will kill Speener.

What happens is most ironic, and I'll let you see what happens. This is a very good episode of Gunsmoke. I don't know if this was an early attempt to debate the death penalty via a Western TV drama, but I do have to wonder given the tone of the episode.

I'd give this episode a 10, if it weren't that the story needs more than a half hour -- Harpe and Speener aren't sufficiently developed for the full irony and nastiness of the story to come out. But it's John Meston at his best.

When a rather ill-tempered bartender -- who's coming to Dodge to take a job -- is thrown by his horse and breaks his leg -- who should help him but an affable-but-nervous young man? If you think you know what will happen, you're wrong.

Meston's script plays very well with our expectations of which one of the two is the "bad guy". (This episode ought to have been directed by Alfred Hitchcock.) It turns out that few people are all black or all white, something a good screenwriter needs to keep in mind.

Strongly, strongly recommended. You can view it on YouTube.

Harry Speener is on his way to Dodge to start a new job as bartender. But on his way his horse throws him and he is left with a broken leg on the wide prairie. But by sheer luck a rider named Joe Harpe comes riding up and takes care of the injured Speener and follows him back to Dodge to make sure he is going to be fine.

Even though the likable Harpe saved Speener's life, Speener knows that Harpe is an outlaw and there is a $500 reward dead or alive on his head. So one day he rides out with Harpe and shoots him in the back to collect the money. Even though Marshal Dillon tried to warn Speener that the people of Dodge are not going to take kindly to him shooting for money, Speener just has to show off the money to locals. The scoundrel Speener is a marked man.

A wonderful play on characters. Even though Harpe was the criminal the writer made the bartender Speener so rotten that it was Speener the viewer felt needed justice. An entertaining story that was well cast. Good watch.

**SPOILERS** This episode points out a couple of real good lessons. The main one, I believe is that right and wrong exist no matter what the law says. Someone can be a lawbreaker, or a criminal and still be a good person. One can also be a law abiding citizen, and the worst type of person.

Two other points, although the lesson far outweighs my subjects. The crime of bank robbery almost never carried a "Wanted Dead or Alive" notice. Unless there was also a murder with it, all they could do was hope they'd catch the guy and put him in jail. Also, bank robbery was NOT a federal crime, so Matt couldn't do anything because even though Colorado was just barely a state, it wasn't a crime in Kansas to rob a bank in another state. I know how it sounds, but it was a fact. Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and a host of other lawbreakers got away many times because of just such a technicality.

This is where Bounty Hunters came in. They operated in a separate realm. There's a long story around that issue, too, but it's NOT part of this episode. What I wonder is if Dillon and Chester used what was left of the bounty money for improvements on the Marshal's office? After all, it was theirs to claim after Speener croaked, wasn't it? Of course, the two cowboys who left Speener some water couldn't share in it after they rode off, leaving him, but Matt shoulda bought them a drink on general principles, anyway. Also, Chester shoulda been slapped silly for having a big mouth.

Good episode with central theme of greed again. Its unbelievable that Speener gets thrown of the horse not once, but twice. You think he would've learned the 1st time and got a different horse.

Anyway, he ends up killing Joe Harpe (who ends up being well liked by Dodge and also saves Speener's life the 1st time he gets thrown off the horse) just for $500 reward money. The really sad thing about it was he wanted the money just to GAMBLE with, thinking he would become richer.

That type of greed leads to loneliness, as he died alone in the middle of nowhere after being thrown from the same horse a 2nd time. That money couldn't save him as 2 passerbys just leave him some water as they knew he killed Joe Harpe in the back.

Dillon, as much as he despised Speener, tried to help him by not letting the town know Speener shot Harpe. But of course Speener showing off the reward money the townspeople figure it out. That's why in the end I'm surprised Dillon with Chester find Speener dead and leave him there for the birds without a proper burial. I thought Speener would have at least be taken to Boot Hill. I guess Dillon was too hot and tired that day.