User Reviews

Wow, a tornado strikes a town early on, and now the inmates run the asylum! That's a different "twist," pun intended.

The twister makes a mess of the town but, oddly, doesn't injure the three crooks in the two jail cells. There are two young somewhat-dumb guys and an older man, who is the apparent leader. The sheriff is killed but the criminals don't have a nick on them! What's more, the older man, "Eli," appoints himself "advisor," one of the kids "sheriff" and the other a "deputy." The deputy pouts because he wasn't named sheriff. When he asks Eli why, Eli responds, "because I said so." The shrugs and says, "okay," and goes back to pouting. That gives you an idea how odd this going to be, and it really gets bizarre beginning with the next scene when Eli appoints the town drunk as the city's "judge." Whatever. "Josh," who was going into this town to get the guys in jail and transport them somewhere, walks into this mess, and it is a mess which includes credibility (i.e. where is the rest of the town?).

Actually, some of the scenes in here are so outrageous, they are funny, reminding me of "The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean" and the craziness of that old western. However, there a tenseness in here, too, because the bad-guys have a real nasty edge to them, so I found it interesting to contemplate how this was all going to play out.

For classic film buffs, it's interesting to note that the female character in this story - who is a key figure in what happens - was played by the sister of a very famous movie actress: Joan Blondell. I am speaking of Gloria Blondell, who was Joan's younger sister. Gloria was married once to Albert Broccoli, the man who produced so many memorable James Bond movies.

One gets a flavor of the take on lawyers from the lines:

Sentence him. For practicing law, 60 days.

And from Miss Lucy (Gloria Blondell):

Not good enough for a friendly hello (...) Pardoning easy; forgetting isn't. You're a lawyer, Mr. Porter, you can't go back and change what is done.

Gloria Blondell and Steve McQueen (Josh Randall) team up in this episode to defeat three convicts who took over the town after a tornado killed the sheriff.

In some ways, it is a spoof on Wizard of Oz. When the leader of the looters (Dennis Patrick) asks Randall (McQueen) if he has ever seen a tornado before, Randall replies, "... once in Kansas."

There are other 1950s Beat Generation moments in this story, as everything is turned upside down by the convicts. Maybe the stories of Judge Roy Bean are an inspiration too (about ten years before "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" with Paul Newman).

The convicts put the town drunk (Dave Willock) in charge of Justice, and he enjoys sending the bar owner to jail for refusing to give free drinks. The lawyer soon goes to jail for practicing law (as if that should be a crime).

Eventually it is down to Gloria Blondell, the saloon gal, to get Randall out of jail so he can bring back law and order. A good shootout ensues, some wrongs are righted, and villains are buried.

Overall an entertaining epsiode. Tom Gilson is in fine form as a bully with an attitude. He was a big tall guy who usually played a thug, and he always had a bright smile on his face, like he expected a lot from life. He was dead by age 28 after his wife, a Playboy model, gunned him down.

The bad guys cover a whole spectrum of forgotten actors who were good actors but never got enough credit, for various reasons...

Dennis Patrick the classy leader, Tom Gilson the muscle-head goon, and John Alderman the... other muscle-head goon, but not as muscular and more of a dummy... with the name of Chum... the live-wire...

This is basically what would become known as a biker movie but in the west. These three fellas that Josh was on the way to pick up for what could have been just another episode had a tornado not come in beforehand and turn the town into something out of Mad Max, and the boys take over... not violently, but... rather logically... with everything in shambles, they fit as the new leaders... and the drunk judge couldn't be happier...

It's a great episode, has nice action and clever mind games, but also is a lot of fun...

McQueen sort of enters as happens sometimes on this series: There are either episodes where he's the main focus from the start (most of them) and people come to him, or where he's the backbone of what feels like an anthology story, but with him as the last word... Gunsmoke episodes were a lot like the latter...

Of the villains: Tom Gilson would be shot dead by his wife in five years (he met her while filming The Crowded Sky), John Alderman a raging alcoholic cult actor's cult actor doing good films but mostly horrible ones, and Dennis Patrick was a very underrated character-actor who could pull off really bad guys or just important people, starred in the movie JOE at the beginning of the 1970's and died in a fire a few decades later... outlived McQueen though...

You can say this episode is cursed, perhaps? Well, either way, it's pretty darn great.