User Reviews

It's not Columbo either. Comes off more like a Wallace Beery movie. Neville Brand is framed for murder. And part of the challenge is figuring out who framed him. Arthur Peterson has an intriguing role in this movie. The Dime Store novel angle is explained well. It focuses on whether entertainment should be permitted, if it can put bad ideas in a kid's head. Fortunately Jamie has a good head on his shoulders. He just needs some guidance, which Ben is willing to give him. Hoss and Joe are helpful mentors, too. The lawmen in this movie seem particularly clueless. At least a Chess diversion helps make Bing Russell's appearance noteworthy.

Given Mitch Vogel's upbringing with a rainmaker dad before he took residence at the Ponderosa I find this episode a bit to swallow. He's supposed to be a reader of those penny dreadful novels of Ned Buntline and that type. Those things were written for the consumption of eastern kids. Those brought up in the west would know better.

Neville Brand the outlaw subject of one of those novels arrives in Virginia City just released from prison. Vogel is thrilled to meet an actual 'hero' of that literature. But the rest of the town isn't too thrilled to have him.

However Brand has a mission of his own, to settle with the silent partner of one of his jobs. Think about James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in Angels With Dirty Faces and you know what is happening.

Scores are settled and Jamie grows up a bit in this Bonanza episode based on a faulty premise.