I was never a big fan of Harold J. Stone. He was a pretty obnoxious actor who played himself in every role. Stone was on Gunsmoke seven times. He was not a bad actor, but it was always the same tone of voice, the same facial expressions, the same body language. He just read his lines. In this episode, he plays Orval, the ex-husband of Edna. Orval went to prison for eight years when he found Edna having an affair with another man, and killed him. Now he is back, and he wants Edna and Hector to move out of his farm.
By comparison to Harold Stone, Jack Elam was often the same but never the same. You see Jack Elam, and you expect the goofy look and the bad eye, but he will often do a lot more. Elam will often interpret his role and put a spin on it, even in something as mundane as a small part on Gunsmoke. If you ever watch "Once Upon A Time in the West," Elam is in the movie for maybe ten minutes, and he spends most of that time trying to catch a fly that kept buzzing his face. It is amazing acting. Elam could give a role a whole back-story without saying anything. Elam was a guest on Gunsmoke fifteen times.
In this episode, Elam plays Hector, the current husband of Edna. Edna was played by Phyllis Coates, who appeared on Gunsmoke three times. I have seen Phyllis Coates in a few movies and TV appearances over the years, and I never recognize her until the credits. Phyllis Coates was the original Lois Lane for the 1951 Superman and The Mole Men, and the first season (1952-53) of The Adventures of Superman. On Superman, she was very friendly and funny with Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and Clark Kent.
In all her other roles, Phyllis Coates usually has a very hard edge, she is very shrill, and not very friendly. In this episode, when her ex-husband Harold J. Stone shows up at her house, Coates runs out and demands that her current husband, Elam, shoot Stone on the spot and bury him.
Coates plays her role as a 1950s noir villainess. She has no love for Hector, she hates Orval, and she just wants a way to a better life, and a ticket out of Dodge City. Along comes a traveling drummer, Frisbie, who is played by French actor Emile Genest. Genest just wants to sell his goods and have some fun in every town. He is used to playing up to the fantasies of lonely married women, and to taking advantage of their hopes and expectations. He plays the hard-edged Coates like a master, and gets her hopes up, and spends a few afternoons by the stream with her, and even leads her on to believe in marriage.
Coates thinks she is going to get out of Dodge, and starts planning how to sell everything and consolidate her money. She gets her shifty son to help her provoke Orval and Hector into a gunfight, so she can keep all the money from the sale of the home and their leather goods/saddle shop.
Tom Lowell plays Ethan, the worthless son of Orval and Edna. Lowell was a pretty bad actor, who is usually "not credited" in a lot of his appearances. His only other appearance on Gunsmoke was as Andy Heller (1962) the evil teenager who tried to kill Marshal Dillon in "Kate Heller." The highlight of Lowell's career was 31 appearances as recurring character Billy Nelson on "Combat!" between 1962-64.
Here he comes across like Jimmy Olsen trying to motivate Hector and Orval to kill each other over jealousy for the Ice Princess, Edna. It would have been a hard sell even for Laurence Olivier. The more that Ethan tries to push Orval and Hector to hate each other, the more that they come to see each other as victims of the evil Edna.
The story comes together in a very heavy-handed way. All the twists are obvious way before they happen. Orval and Hector become pals, and Ethan is exposed as a lazy, back-stabbing son whose own mother wants to leave him behind in Dodge. Edna is in love again, but she gets taken advantage of by Frisbee, who tells Edna that he is willing to ride an old mule by the stream, but he can't take her home to his wife and five kids. Only Jack Elam makes this episode worth watching.
