User Reviews

I watched GUNSMOKE and BONANZA more frequently than I watched HAVE GUN-WILL TRAVEL, but I always felt there was an edginess in the Richard Boone series that was not found in the other two. Matt Dillon, Kitty, Doc, Chester, and Festus were the good people as were the Cartwrights. But Boone's Paladin (although a learned gentleman) is a professional killer, and one who is constantly considering if the cause he takes up is the right one or not.

This episode was one where he knew the cause was just. While at home in San Francisco, Paladin and his elderly friend Leadhead go to see a singer that Leadhead once saw before. The singer Annette Vargas (Lita Milan) is very sweet, and she joins the two men for dinner. Soon Leadhead finds he is having the best night of his life (not sexually, but enjoying a really friendly conversation with a person he likes). At the end of the night he asks Annette to autograph the photo on his program. Instead she gives him a locket with her picture as a gift.

The next day Paladin finds Leadhead died during the night (he had a heart condition). Paladin learns that Leadhead actually wrote out a will that was properly witnessed leaving his half of a silver mine to Annette. Annette never intended to become Leadhead's heir, and she tells Paladin that she probably won't take the inheritance. Then, Leadhead's partner Vance Crawford (Whit Bissell) shows up at Annette's door with an offer: he'll give her $1,000.00 for the will so he can destroy it. Crawford keeps reminding her that the will is no good and would be dismissed, that she can make some money for herself by doing what he asks, and then ruins everything by insinuating that she entrapped a foolish old man into making that will. Annette soon visits Paladin and says she is now determined to get the will probated.

Going to the town that the mine is in, Paladin and Annette are soon targeted at the hotel in the town by Crawford's man Jess Hagan (Martin Balk), and when they go to the mine to put up a sign as a preliminary to the probate they are ambushed. They are unable to leave the mine because Jess and two others are outside firing at them (on the other hand none of these three are able to get into the mine without facing Paladin's shooting ability). Paladin and Annette realize that if they are kept in the mine until after the probate of Leadhead's estate, then Crawford can be declared sole owner.

Eventually they do get out of the mine (I'll leave that to you to discover how). They also have their day in court, with (for a change) Paladin winning his victory without having to kill anyone (even the obnoxious Crawford). It turns on the sad life in small town Western America in the 19th Century. It was hard and it was tedious...and quite lonely.

The episode moves along, and given the degree of violence in Western and police shows it was refreshing to see a solution that was done bloodlessly.