A Quiet Night in Town: Part 1

One of the best of all episodes....both part 1 & 2 the second of a two parter. Paladin was amazing in these two episodes. I was on the edge of my seat. Although there may have been remorse about the shooting by the very bored towns folk, I think Paladin was more interested in having justice served than anything else. His gun is his tool and he uses it well...right handed or left handed. the man knows how to get the job done. Phenomenal acting and one of the better plots. I highly recommend these two episodes. You can see the acting skills Richard Boone has accumulated as the series moves on. He becomes one with this part. The script is also very good all things considered. I highly recommend this!!

Paladin has captured Joselto Kincaid, an alleged fugitive killer, and is bringing him in for a trial. Needing a brief stop before boarding a train, Paladin stops over in a town for the night. While there, four local thugs bored in a no horse town decide to hang Kincaid. Their first attempt is foiled by Ray Remy, local older, overweight sheriff who also runs the town bar. After overpowering Paladin, the men take Kincaid, but before he can be hung, Kincaid hurls imprecations at Joe Culp. Culp loses his temper and shoots Kincaid and then rifle butts Paladin's right hand.

When Paladin recovers, he goes after the men. Culp draws on Paladin and the result baffles Remy. How? Paladin tells Remy guns are his tools. But now there are still three others to capture. Paladin will offer them a choice: put cuffs on and be brought to trial or die.

This is a rare two-episode Paladin which means there is more time to develop character and plot. The production set is bleaker than usual setting up a shadowy backdrop for this morality play: the struggle to determine is it justice or revenge we see before us.

Well done episode(s) featuring a young Sydney Pollack who was an actor before becoming an Oscar winning director. Pollack makes a good bad man indicating he might have matured into a fine actor.

This episode has a lot of night scenes. That dark look conveys the feeling of evil and mean people. Black and White TV in my humble opinion was great for TV episodes like this, and for TV shows like the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and others that often had grim themes. The Color TV can never match the stark tones of contrast that the cinematographers could get in Black and White.

This first part starts out with Paladin and his prisoner Kincaid (played as a very nasty guy by Robert Carricart) arriving in a small town to catch the next train to Wyoming. Along comes Joe Culp (future director Sidney Pollack), and his pals, played by veteran actors Kevin Hagen, James Best, and another guy who is not in the credits.

Sidney Pollack has a face for a Western villain. He looks like many of the bad guys from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. Kevin Hagen and James Best are always pretty good as villains. The fourth guy that is not in the credits does a good job as the sidekick to the villains.

The bottom line is that Carricart /Kincaid is a pretty nasty guy, and when the four thugs show up to challenge Paladin for his prisoner, Carricart does everything he can to pour gasoline on the fire, and create a confrontation. Paladin is viciously beaten up, and gets his hand crushed, and gets to watch Culp shoot Carricart to death.

Nobody liked Carricart / Kincaid, including Paladin. I have only seen Robert Carricart in a few roles, but he seemed to specialize in playing incredibly nasty and unlikeable creeps. In spite of that, Paladin thinks he deserved a trial, and he is also angry about getting beaten into a pulp. Paladin has occasionally gotten beaten up in other episodes, but this was the worst beating I can remember.

Town Sheriff is played by Robert Emhardt, who is supposed to be the voice of reason, but he comes across as just a lazy sheriff who is trying to psyche out Paladin so he will leave town. I can think of other character actors from this era that would have been more convincing in this role.

William Challee is an old character actor who has a couple of scenes, and he does a good job setting the mood of the town, and informing the Sheriff as to what the bad guys are doing.

Eventually, Paladin gets up from the dirt where the villains left him, bloody, dazed, confused, and he finds the dead body of Carricart / Kincaid. Sheriff Remy keeps telling him to forget about it and go away. But Paladin is not going away. Paladin and all hell are about to break loose in crummy little Jody Town.