The Liam Fitzmorgan Story Oct 28, 1958
The Doctor Willoughby Story Nov 5, 1958
The Bije Wilcox Story Nov 19, 1958
The Millie Davis Story Nov 26, 1958
So many American TV shows have done episodes on the 'troubles' in Ireland, (even Hawaii Five-0). Here Cliff Roberston plays an Irish rebel of the 1860's who has been assigned to find and kill a doctor who informed on their group, resulting in several executions, who has fled to America with his pretty daughter. They've wound up on Major Adams' wagon train and so Robertson joined it, where he finds some other Irish Immigrants and has a brogue contest with them throughout the episode. Rhys Williams, who plays the doctor, is Welch. The beautiful Audrey Dalton, who plays his daughter, is authentic - Dublin born. Terence de Marney, who plays a trouble-making opportunist, is from London, (where he tragically died when he fell under a subway train in 1971). David Leland, his drinking buddy, is from Colorado. Cliff was born in LA but does pretty well. Naturally, he falls for the naive Dalton, who can't believe that her father could be an informer. Cliff is still determined to so his job. De Marney solves the problem by shooting Cliff and a stabbing Williams, who uses his doctor skill to save Cliff's life before dying of his own wound in a highly melodramatic ending.
One of my favorite Gunsmoke episodes is "Sam McTavish, MD." (S16E4 10/5/70), in which Doc Adams resents the arrival of a woman doctor in Dodge until he gets to know her and see how good she is at their profession. The doctor is played by Vera Miles and they grow very found of each other. Then an epidemic hits and they work side-by-side to combat it. She comes down with the disease and he's unable to save her. Dr. Willoughby, played by the very similar Jane Wyman, has a similar experience with Seth Adams when she joins the wagon train. He comes to respect her and needs her skills and begins to fall for her. There's no epidemic but there is a problem with the Indians, who have had one of their women attacked by some jerks who put a bullet into the chief. They want to kill any whites they can find but if the doctor can save the chief, a conflict with the wagon train can be avoided. But the Indians won't let a woman cut on their chief so she has to instruct a very nervous She as to what to do. She doesn't come down with anything but tells Seth she wants to stay in the local community and serve them rather than move on to California.
Wagon Train had made a lame version of Dorothy Johnson's story 'A Man Called Horse' in it's first season. Ms. Johnson wrote the The Bije Wilcox Story for the show in the second season and it seems very much like a retelling of the same tale and this one is much better than the previous episode. This should really be called The Francis Mason Story as the is the real protagonist, played by Onslow Stevens. He's the brother of Lawrence Dobkin, (and old member of the radio Gunsmoke players), who has gone west and wound up a member and, in fact the chief of the local Indian tribe. He's now known as 'Medicine Mark'. Dobkin has come to hate whites, even though they are the people he came from, because of what they have done to his new 'brothers'. The way he was treated by his brother and father as a child is also a factor. Mason has reformed and seeks his brother's forgiveness. He has to go through a ritual depicted in the 1970 film based on 'A Man Called Horse', where strings are inserted into his breasts, (yes, men have breasts), and attached to a weight and he has to continually drag it around a maypole, in increasing agony. His ordeal ends when Medicine Mark, (urged on by Flint McCullough), stops it and hugs his brother, whom he still, underneath all his hate, love him. Bije Wilcox is Mason's eccentric guide, played by the eccentric actor Chill Wills but he's really a supporting character.
After those heavy dramatics, they must have wanted something a bit more lightweight. The Millie Davis story is about a dance hall girl, (Nancy Gates), who informally adopted a baby, the only survivor of a landslide, because she was the only female in town. The girl is now 9 years old, (or at least Evelyn Rudie was that age when she played the role). Her grandmother, a rich lady from the east, has finally traced her down and arrived in the mining town in which they live, expecting to take possession of the girl, the 'last vestige" of her deceased son. Gates wants Flint to pose as her husband, who father the child to convince the old lady that this is not her grandchild. Meanwhile, James Coburn plays a stage robber who get the idea of kidnapping the girl to make some big money.
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