Gunsmoke The Judas Gun (1955–1975) Online

In this episode we have a story involving two families that are at odds with each other. One family, the Haimes, consist of the father and his son named Cully. The other family, the Boldens, consist of the father and his daughter named Janie. The two young people are in love and the feud is between the fathers not wanting their children to marry the other child.

One day the two fathers get together for an all out fist-a-cuffs but is interrupted when Cully injures Mr Bolden. Right after this Mr Bolden hires a gunfighter to put the fear into Cully and to make him stay away from his daughter.

The cold professional gunfighter, Boyd Avery, does his work till it is completed. His intentions is to kill Cully and not just to scare him unless the full amount of money is paid to leave the area.

Mr Bolden agrees to pay the high fee but word has leaked out that the gunfighter is here to kill Cully. So when Cully confronts Body Avery in the street of Dodge and they agree to meet the following morning in the old town outside Dodge for a gunfight.

Things look bad for Cully as Boyd is a known professional that has a reputation for killing many people. When Janie hears the news she decides to go to the old town. Will she be able to stop the gunfight before someone ends up dead? And with the fathers also arriving will they be able to stop the feud?

A very nice story that was perfectly cast. From the fathers to the gunfighter each actor brought the character alive to make for an entertaining episode. Nice watch

***SPOILERS*** Avery was right, except that he forgot his own code. See, he said earlier in this episode that he (as a professional) would have to be paid. And he would have been, too. the next morning. when he was supposed to be meeting Cully, he should have collected his pay, and took a powder.

Now, actually, according to Hollywood lore, this would have worked out to his distinct advantage. See, the next fool; and there is ALWAYS another young gunfighter looking to make his reputation, isn't there? Absolutely. The whelp naturally should have assumed that good old Avery just wasn't up to snuff anymore. Overconfident, he goes down in a blaze of stupidity. Before that, however, Boyd Avery pockets $1500 in coin of the realm and says aloha, suckers.

Okay, fine. it was just a little speculatin'. The kid would probably get his Karma leveled later, by someone else. Entertaining, with a great bone dry, dusty, prolific, ghost town..an 8.

"The Judas Gun" is an hour-long version of one of John Meston's worst scripts, "Romeo". The extra time permits fleshing out the characterizations, and the gunslinger now occupies a central point in the story. There's also a bit of Meston-ish irony, with the son the gunslinger is after, saving him when his horse throws him.

Had Meston written this version, at least two of the five potential corpses would have been pushing up daisies at the end. (You've got the fathers, the kids, and the gunfighter to choose from.) Unfortunately, the networks were under increasing pressure to minimize violence. So the fathers implausibly bury the hatchet after 30 years of feuding.

That wouldn't have been so bad had Harry Kronman written a serious, plausible reconciliation scene. The fathers instead sort of cutely "kiss and make up". It's almost as bad as if they'd engaged in open-mouthed kissing. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

What makes this episode so deeply disappointing is that, until Matt shows up and stops the gunfight (at this point in the history of the series, you were expecting something else?), you really /don't know/ how the story will end -- and then it peters out in a pile of sentimental slop.

I don't like knowing how a story will end. I like intelligent surprises.

This story about a family feud gone wrong becomes interesting, when the gun fighter(Avery) hired to kill Cully winds up the good guy. However after being cared for by the young man and meeting Janie he realizes the feud is not worth killing for. He talks Mr Bolden into changing his mind about the hit. Yes he asks to be rewarded the same as killing him for leaving however it should be worth that price to show Bolden he had taken it to far. This is the best part of the episode, unfortunately its only about half over at this point.

As Avery is making his preparations to leave town, Cully shows up and makes a fool of him by calling him out in front of dodge citizens, Calling him a liar and punching him in the face. Avery lets the boy off in town but knows he can't let his reputation die because of this punk kid.

Needless to say the end has Avery taking a bullet and who knows what else maybe going to jail. While the two families have a happy ending. The question is why do they deserve one and not Avery?

I rate this episode so low because it fails to make you feel sorry for anyone other than Avery and maybe Janie. Janie hasn't got many lines however and you don't get attached to her.