User Reviews

The second episode of Wagon Train has Ward Bond's outfit stuck in St. Joseph, Missouri getting their supplies. The town is run by boss Grant Withers and his word is law. Withers has no good rotten son played by William Phipps who gets into a card game with Creole Frenchmen Ricardo Montalban. When he loses he accuses Montalban of cheating and draws on him. That was a final fatal mistake.

Phipps may have been no good, but he was his kid and we've seen this in a gazillion situations on the big and small screen. Withers holds up Bond's supplies as Montalban was a member of the train and Bond is protecting him on the word of Robert Horton who saw the shooting.

Montalban also is quite in love with Joanna Moore whose driver he is and who loves him as well. Why haven't they married, a question of class which in the French culture they come from means something.

Montalban is a man of honor and Withers a man consumed with grief. Someone has to come to their senses, maybe both of them.

By 1957 Withers was a pretty dissipated individual and his portrayal as a drunken grief stricken father didn't require much acting. Two years later he'd put an end to his own life, a lot of which consisted of charity by friends like John Wayne and John Ford and Ward Bond.

An interesting, but somewhat far-fetched tale for Episode 2.