The Squaw

Arlen Martel"Quanah" and John Saxon"Gristy Calhoun" did a fantastic job in the portrayal of their parts. Heartwarming to realize that Quanah was always able to logically think things through and was "a step ahead" of everyone involved. Also, very entertaining was the excellent use of similes,metaphors,personification,etc.in the script. e.g."..just my luck I'll die in a preacher's back yard!","he's got the patience of a bird watching a worm hole!",and several others. This has just got to be the best episode that Gunsmoke ever produced.(S20|E14,1975).

This episode gets confused with a 1961 episode with the same title but has no similarities in plot or characters.

In this 1975 episode, a group of bank robbers are riding in the desert. When one of the robber's horse goes lame, the leader, Charlie Dent, decides that the one that did not fully take part in the robbery, Gristy Calhoun(John Saxton), will be left killed and the loot split among the living. However Gristy anticipated that he was going to be left out- so he removed the bullets out of Charlie's gun. So when all this went down Gristy took all the money and left the others in the desert. Of course this was not going to set well with the remain men and they made a pact to find Gristy and the money.

Meanwhile Matt catches up with Gristy and will take him back to Dodge for trial. But Gristy now has an Indian squaw that was left by a local tribe after having been married to two braves that died. She was considered back luck by the Indians and left with Gristy.

Soon the other robbers, wanting the money, are on the trail of Matt and Gristy. Matt, Gristy and the Squaw retreat to a old miner's shack to hopefully fend off the attack by the robbers.

The action seemed slow in coming but picked up well near the end. The lovely Arlene Martel that played the Indian Squaw named Quanah - looked beautiful as ever, especially when she mounted a horse, but seemed not to have been the right cast for the part. With the strong actors in this episode she was mechanical in her performance. Other than that small item, the program was interesting to watch. Good show from the last season.

One of the best episodes from the later seasons. No lollygagging around the Long Branch in this one, just plenty of action out in the rough country. Good guys chasing bad guys. Bad guys chasing bad guys. Bad guys chasing good guys. Big shoot'em up at the end. There's a lot happening in this episode. Plus compelling human drama between John Saxon and Arlene Martel. Excellent acting by both of them and great writing/characters. Writing , acting, and directing are all top notch in this episode. And Arlene Martel... I would have watched this episode even if it stunk. I don't care how much they try to "plain her up", her exotic beauty always shines through.

I'm a Gunsmoke fanatic. I thought this was a good episode until the scene with the dead horse. Maybe it was just really good acting on the horses part, but the horse's death looked so real!