User Reviews

I used to watch Maverick when it first aired. It was one of the few shows at that time that my father and I both enjoyed, although for probably somewhat different reasons. I was about 10, my father was in his later 40s.

Fans of Three Stooges comedy shorts have this notion where the entries that do not feature Curly are deemed inferior. There are "Curlys" and "non Curlys" entries (generally called "Shemps"). Mavericks episodes are sort of similar. There are "Brets" (James Garner) which to any Maverick connoisseur are generally considered superior episodes when compared to the "Barts" (Jack Kelly).

Yellow River is a "Bart", and it is a strange one, which is why I felt it necessary to amuse myself writing this review. Bart needs money so he gets hired by a woman to be the trail boss of men on a cattle drive. The whole thing of a Maverick being a trail boss seems somehow out of character, but that is just the beginning of the oddities.

They pick up a stray "woman" along the way. From the first second the camera focuses on her she seems very strange. She has a thick neck and broad shoulders, although surprisingly, her voice does sound feminine. Anyway, every morning a cowhand is found dead, having been knifed the night before. Somehow Bart figures it out and reveals that the woman is actually a man in a wig and a dress, and is on the lam from a robbery. The woman-turned-man is asked where the stolen money is hidden and he refuses unless he is granted his freedom. Bart agrees over the protest of the remaining cowhands.

Once the location of the money is learned, the man, still adorned in a woman's dress, is released but much to his surprise, he is given no horse, no men's clothing. He is sent out onto the desolate prairie on foot, in a dress. The notion stuck me as truly surreal, made all the more bizarre when considering the episode first hit televisions in 1958. After the man departs the cattle drive camp, Bart reveals to the cowpokes that there is a marshal back up the trail and the man will undoubtedly be arrested.

Anyway, if you want a good, Old Western tale, Yellow River is not it. If you want to spend an hour in a kind of oddball, wild west Twilight Zone, the episode is for you. I gave it an 8 based on its unconventional entertainment value.