User Reviews

Not great Gunsmoke, but worth an "8" for novelty and the priceless interplay between Dee J. Thompson as Big Lena, and Dennis Weaver (Chester), who keeps inadvertently drawing her ire and quickly learning to regret it. Very unusual in 1955 to have a woman physically intimidating a town full of macho men.

... with this episode that relies so much on the visual and on the facial expressions of the cast rather than just dialog and anything you hear.

A rough Annie Oakley type, Lena Wave, comes to Dodge City with Emmett, a male companion who is a dealer. She plans to have a card game over at the Long Branch with Emmett as the dealer. But on top of being rough acting and talking, she walks the walk. As a result someone is shot dead for making advances to her. In the old west, that was considered just cause for being shot by the offended woman. But the partner of the dead man arrives in town and is looking for the person who killed that partner, not knowing the killer is a woman. In fact, the partner of the dead man seems to not know lots of things. The result is unexpected, but not entirely. This show may be set in the old west, but remember it was written in the 1950s!

The success of this episode rests very much on the reaction of the cast, not the least of which is Chester's frightened expression when he thinks Lena is about to beat him up in front of the entire town, Matt's alternately amused and frustrated reaction, and an overworked Doc who is dealing with the victims of Lena's beatings.

While watching, I was enjoying where this story was going. A large big-mouth woman appears to have just found someone made for her and then the writer went and destroyed the good time. It ended like a cartoon making the viewer accept something that we all know is not going to work.

Anyway the story began when this large ill-tempered woman named Lena Wave comes riding into dodge with her small male companion Emmett. Lena is a woman that takes nothing from a man and at times is more of a man than many people in Dodge. And the way she treats Emmett is more like a dog than a human being.

When Lena kills a man, Ed James, for making advances toward her a friend of Ed's named Nate Bannister, a large buffalo hunter, comes into town to avenge his friends death. Woman or no woman Nate was going to kill the person that shot his friend.

Here is when the story gets interesting as the Marshal has locked up Nate for his big talk. When Lena gets word that someone is out to kill her she goes to the Marshal's office to look the man over. And as she is looking at Nate in his jail cell it appears that Cupid's arrow makes a direct hit in the back of the Marshal's office. But not so fast, there is more to this story.

I actually have wished the story had went another way but since that did not happen we have to accept the results and move forward. A very nice story that was wonderfully played by Dee J Thompson as Lena. An entertaining episode that was fun to watch.

I agree with another reviewer who says it was not a typical Gunsmoke episode. True. The 1st season was just sorting things out and trying to decide how to go forward with the characters, the scripts, etc.

But I really enjoyed this episode. More than I'd expected. The humor was well done; and The Big Broad was wonderful, even if a tad over-done at times.

Yes, it wasn't "classic" Gunsmoke. Nevertheless, I had a very good time watching this one again.

This was a pretty good episode. I'm glad Gunsmoke does a lot of what I call semi comedic episodes. Not too serious but no slapstick or over the top acting. Always a nice change of pace from the usual bad guy shoot em dead episodes. The woman was not quite as big as they tried to make her out to be, but oh well. Enjoyed it all the way through.

The title "The Big Broad' puzzled me until I saw big Lena (Dee J. Thompson). She's an amazon dressed in leather breeches with a temper to match. There's a lot of unforced laughs watching her bulldoze her way through Dodge after arriving with cringing sidekick little Emmett whom she treats like a slow-thinking mutt. Even Matt is flummoxed. After all, she is a woman in the technical sense, even if she's mean enough to face down a pack of buffalo skinners.

Different kind of episode whose humor flows from Lena's effect on the citizens of macho Dodge. Watch Chester's priceless expressions after he learns to stay out of her way. Thompson's not much of an actress, but then with her looks, she doesn't have to be. I'm not sure how well the ending works. Given the conformist decade of the 50's, I suppose something like it should come as no big surprise.

Not your typical Gunsmoke. Can't say much more than that or we'll give away the plot but one thing that really irritated me was the Three Musketeers sitting outside of the office and giggling and smirking at the size and demeanor of this so unusual big woman.

A tall, gun-toting woman rides into Dodge City with a smaller man. Chester Goode, Matt Dillon, and Doc Adams are sitting in front of the Marshal's office, and they watch as the couple rides up to the office. When the man steps on the woman's foot, she hits and verbally abuses the man. Chester is highly amused by the situation, and the woman takes exception to Chester's laughter.

The woman introduces herself as Lena Wave and her companion as Emmett Fitzgerald. Emmett is a gambler, and "Big" Lena plans for him to play cards at the Long Branch Saloon. Lena presides over the game while Emmett deals the cards. If anyone -- including Chester -- does something to displease Lena, she physically removes them from the game.

Big Lena presents problems for Matt, because he does not know how to deal with a female bully.

When a drunk buffalo hunter makes advances at Lena in the Dodge House, she shoots and kills him. Nate Bannister, the dead man's partner, soon arrives in town to seek justice for his partner's death. When Marshal Dillon refuses to arrest Lena for murder, Bannister decides he will kill her. Bannister pulls a knife on the Marshal, and is subsequently jailed.

Big Lena wants to see the man that wants to kill her. When they meet, it is love at first sight for Bannister, but Lena harbors some secrets that will introduce obstacles into the relationship.

Dee J. Thompson is the Lena Wave character in this story. Thompson appears in the series in one additional episode as Widow Pearl Winton, who has romantic designs on Festus Haggen. Thompson was a frequent guest on television shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

A common casting error in television series of this time is to cast an attractive person in a role where the person is supposed to be unattractive. (There is at least one more Gunsmoke episode where this is true. Season 7's "Milly" features Jena Engstrom as a supposedly homely woman, but Engstrom does not fit the description she is given by men in the story.) Thompson is a tall woman. She does not have the natural beauty of Amanda Blake at the time, but she is not an unattractive woman, as the story would have us believe.

Joel Ashley made appearances in many westerns throughout his career. He appears in four Gunsmoke episodes, including this one. He plays the Nate Bannister character.

Actor Terry Becker makes his only appearance in the series as Emmett Fitzgerald. Becker is best known for playing Chief Sharkey on the series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea during its four seasons.

Howard Culver appears once again as the clerk at the Dodge House. Although he is credited only as "Hotel Clerk," Lena refers to him as "Mr. Uzzell" during the episode. That name would be used for him, along with Howard and Howie, in future episodes.

This is one of those stories that straddles the line between comedy and drama. There are some funny lines and scenes in the episode. After Matt knocks out Bannister in the Marshal's office, Matt says, "Sure was a temptation to let him go after her." Doc replies, "Yeah. He was just about her size, too." Shortly following that scene, Bannister is expressing his attraction to Lena. The camera briefly cuts to James Arness's face, and the look of perplexed disgust is hilarious.

There is not enough time in this episode to gain an understanding of how Lena Wave came to be the overbearing bully she has become. The story hints at some of the reasoning, especially near the end, but the time constraints prevent any real exploration of the subject. As a result, the story lacks substance and just kind of fizzles out as it reaches its conclusion.

This is yet another David Victor and Herbert Little, Jr. Screenplay for a John Meston story that first aired on the radio broadcast. Despite the fact the television screenplay and radio broadcast differ little, the radio version works better, because Lena Wave is described as a two-hundred-pound woman as strong and ornery as a mule. Since the listener cannot see the characters, it makes the story more convincing. (In the radio broadcast, Virginia Gregg portrays Lena; Vic Perrin plays Emmett Fitzgerald; and John Dehner fills the Nate Bannister role. All three actors appeared in the television series on numerous occasions.)

I disagree with the other reviewer of this episode: Dee J. Thompson is actually an attractive and talented actress who is playing Lena Wave as if she were a female Hoss Cartwright. She's very forceful, although not quite as big as everybody around her claims, (I think some camera angles were used to exaggerate her height).

Contrast this episode, which is ultimately a drama with Lena as a tragic figure who wants to be treated like a woman but who doesn't know how to act like one, to "Hinka Do" (1/30/60), in which Matt encounters another large, boisterous woman with a diminutive husband. "Mamie" is played by a stout, middle aged woman who really is unattractive. That one is played strictly for laughs. "Big Broad" is a more dramatic and better episode with some real depth to it.

Boring ... a real snooze.

An episode written by television writers. Episodes first aired on radio are brilliant. The rest aren't very good. Unsure why Gunsmoke's television writers cannot match what the radio writers crafted.