User Reviews

In this atmospheric, claustrophobic episode of Have Gun – Will Travel, Paladin is paid to find a supposed killer named Coey (Mort Mills), a $1000 greenbacks as a reward if taken to the town where the crime happened alive. Of course, those related to the victim want Coey stone cold dead, which includes Joe and Will Gage (Jack Elam and Ed Nelson). A Sioux named John Wildhorse (Rodolfo Acosta) has a little town (a couple buildings and a barn, more of a ranch, really) providing much needed shelter for Paladin and Coey, but he's vocally against allowing this captured man to even get a trial. Joe's brother's wife (Pat Silver) knows the face of the man who murdered her husband, with Joe agreeing to hold out attempting to shoot Coey until she sees him, confirming or denying his being the killer. That scene when she does see his face, accompanied by Coey's "Hey, Beauty" line (complete with a devilish grin) is chilling. It is one of those moments where the episode had put out there the possibility that Coey could be innocent, and to the credit of all involved, reasonable doubt is established…until this scene truly puts it all to rest. Kudos to Mills, though, for providing enough incentive in his performance to have us asking ourselves if he was set up, only to reveal his true self to poor Silver. This episode just proves that the western genre was always successful fertile ground for exploring (condemning or perhaps daringly justifying occasionally) the theme of vigilante justice. Paladin has a set of principles regardless of his bounty hunter profession…he believes a man should face the court of law and be tried, not killed beforehand. Here, although he doesn't want to, Paladin will have to face Joe and Will in a gunfight. Coey isn't worth that, but even Wildhorse seems convinced that he deserves to be killed prior to a trial. Paladin is a man alone, and Coey attempts futilely to escape numerous times only to fail…yet, the irony of this episode is that, despite all that want him dead, Coey will have a guardian protector in Paladin, unlike the man he might have killed. Famed Hollywood actress, Ida Lupino, once again struts her talents behind the camera right out there for us, providing a dust-stormed setting that claustrophobically places the characters in Wildhorse's home. The intensity of a young Jack Elam (he's all about business, here, and the sooner Coey's dead the better; he's damned convincing as this man out to get vengeance) is impressively played against the customary cool of Richard Boone, neither budging from their mission. Ed Nelson is a fine character actor, primarily in television, but his role here has little dialogue, although he's spitting mad and fuming. This is good stuff, folks, if you like your westerns with characters at opposing sides wanting the same results…justice. The conclusion is unfortunate because good men die that shouldn't over a man that doesn't deserve it.