User Reviews

... as he'd have an appearance in "The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre" and also get a multi year stint on Bonanza as Candy, plugging the hole left by Pernell Roberts' absence, later this same year.

Here he is George McClaney, a poor man who loves a saloon girl who has little use for him in his impoverished state. Town drunk Louie Pheeters, though, is a true blue friend to him, rich or poor. And then a chance comes for some real money by cooking up some nitroglycerin for a bunch of rather resourceful thieves. Instead of just entering banks they wish to rob and hoping that the bank teller can and will open the safe, they blow them wide open with their nitro. Meanwhile Matt Dillon is trying to figure out who these rather imaginative thieves could be.

George's new temporary job has a high chance of death, thus the high pay. But after his big score, George returns to Dodge and the Long Branch dressed to the nines, flush with cash. Suddenly the saloon girl of his dreams finds him irresistable. You'd be safer with that nitro George. George has a way to parlay the cash he has left into a legitimate stream of income. The other businessman is honest, it is the way of the future (oil) - He can't lose says George. And then along comes fate. In part two.

I always enjoyed David Canary's presence. He made a complex villain on All My Children, he was an interesting good guy on Bonanza, and he did well in individual roles such as this. His looks were so interesting and he had such severe yet attractive facial features. If the military surgeons had done a better job of putting Jack Palance's face back together after his wartime injury he could have looked like this.

I still remembered this one from its original run in 1967 and just ran into it at its beginning when channel surfing ths morning. If you get a chance I'd say give it a look.

One can almost imagine the Gunsmoke writers sitting around and thinking, "We have two more episodes to write for this season, but only have one idea. Maybe we can just extend one episode into two hours!"

There is not really anything wrong with this story of a man named George McClaney who is desperate for money and demonstrates a willingness to perform an extremely dangerous task because it pays well. The scene where George boils the dynamite to create the first container of nitroglycerin is nerve wracking, even though there is little doubt he will succeed.

(I do have to wonder about the wisdom of using something as volatile as nitroglycerin crudely extracted from dynamite to blow safes open.)

The problem is there is not enough material here for a two-part episode. There is a lot of needless talking, over-wrought hand wringing, and useless plot elements in this first part. There is very little involvement by the regular cast members, as most of the story revolves around George

This episode features a strong cast of guest stars. David Canary, who played Candy Canaday on Bonanza starting in 1967 and spent many years on All My Children, plays the desperate man. Several other frequent Gunsmoke guests also appear, including Eddie Firestone, Tom Reese, and Dub Taylor.

Attractive Bonnie Beecher appears here as Anne, one of Kitty Russell's employees at The Long Branch Saloon. George is smitten with Anne, and his desire for a future with her is the primary motivation for his actions in the story. In real life, Beecher dated Bob Dylan at one point. She may have been the inspiration for Dylan's "Girl from North Country." She would later marry renown hippie/activist Wavy Gravy. She had a child with Wavy Gravy that was named "Howdy Do-Good Gravy Tomahawk Truckstop Romney." (Romney is Wavy Gravy's birth name.)

The story was actually interesting. A man down-on-his-luck with no prospects of getting out of his hole in life, finds a good paying job, yet dangerous, and now seems like he has his life back on path.

The problem with this part one of this show is that it moves at a snail's pace. Everything in part one was so stretched out that I can only assumed they needed to make the story longer to get the full two hours show filmed. It was so slow that interest soon fades and you can only hope for relief in the second part of the program.

The story involved George McClaney that was the down-on-his-luck person that seemed to be better off not having been born. When he is approached by three men giving him a job of boiling dynamite and then skimming off the top layer of nitroglycerin. Then he had to pour the volatile liquid into a small glass container.

George is paid very well for his work and has a lot of greenbacks in his wallet. He goes to Dodge and meets his girlfriend named Ann. He tells her that he is investing in an oil development company with the money he now has obtained. He then tells the three men that he is quitting- but it will not be easy when they threaten Ann.

It was something that could have taken twenty minutes, yet the production staff made it last the full hour. Not much is accomplished in part one so here is hoping part two is better.