User Reviews

THE RIFLEMAN – Long Trek – 1961

Chuck Connors headlines this 1958 to 1963 western series that ran for 168 episodes. Connors is a world class hand with a Winchester rifle. This of course ends up getting him in no end of trouble. This episode is number 93 of the run.

Chuck Connors and North Fork Sheriff Paul Fix are escorting a prisoner to town. The man, Lonny Chapman is to be charged for his part in a ranch burning and murder.

The trio come up on a stretch of desert they need to cross. After they stop for the night, Chapman frightens all the horses off. Now they are stuck in the middle of nowhere with no water. Chapman smiles and says to Connors and Fix that he knows where there is water. But unless they take the chains off and release him, he will remain silent to the water's location.

Connors and the Sheriff answer in the negative to this suggestion. Connors suggests they now wait till night before crossing. It will save them from the heat of the day.

It does not take long before the lack of water starts to affect the men. On top of this, Fix takes a tumble and bangs up his ankle. He tells Connors to leave him, and continue with Chapman to North Forkl. Connors of course has no intention of leaving Fix behind. He decides to beat the location of the hidden waterhole out of Chapman.

Chapman has by this time gone mad from thirst. He starts eating handfuls of sand thinking it is water. Before he dies, Chapman laughs and points to where Fix is sitting. Shortly afterwards the horses wander up. They head right to Fix and start kicking at the sand beside him.

It dawns on Connors that horses can smell water. He starts scrapping out where the horse was kicking and soon gets wet sand. Grabbing the shovel off the one horse, he attacks the hole. Soon water is flowing from the hidden spring.

Chapman was one of those familiar faces one can never put a name to when he pops up on screen. He had more than 300 bits in film and television. (b/w)

Lonny Chapman was so versatile that he can carry the episode as #3. He is really #1 in this episode. As others have told the story I'm just commenting on the superb acting of Connors, Fix and Chapman. As I watch this episode I think how realistic they all look after being without water and how it affects the brain. Even Lucas gets dizzy and one feels he'll go the way of Micah who is almost incapacitated.

It's Stanley at the end who does it for me with those antics of a madman as he loses it and starts thinking cool water is running his way. As time runs out for Stanley, horses return, a little digging brings the spring flowing and Lucas and Micah are saved.

Chapman was equally good in Devil Makes Five as a condemned man with wit but Long Trek really shows his abilities as an actor taunting and laughing then downright unhinged.

Poor Lucas had to probably bury Stanley good thing he had plenty of water and horses.

Look, the end result is never in doubt but seeing this excellent episode play out is still quite plenty tense as a no-good, low-down murderer (Lonny Chapman) being taken by Sheriff Micah and Lucas (Paul Fix and Chuck Conners) to a jail for an execution (he killed a stagecoach family) through harsh, sunbaked territory --where there's little water and a lot of desert and rock --rushes off their three horses so he could finagle his captors into letting him free from his shackles in exchange for a location where water is located. That's it with the episode for the most part. It is a psychological struggle as "smiling Stanley" embellishes on the fact that he knows where water is while the older Micah starts to decline, eventually falling down a rocky cliff and breaking some ribs. As the sun continues to wear away on them, Lucas and Micah hope that Stanley will become so dehydrated and desperate he will cave in and tell them where the water is. This episode ably conveys the nightmarish scenario where combating the elements on foot, without water, as the sun beats down good and hot, can be a detriment worthy of perhaps setting free a cold blooded murderer in order just to survive. Micah knows that Stanley deserves to pay for what he did and this alone drives them for a spell but that hot sun and no water would be taxing on the strongest willed individuals. There's an especially good scene where Lucas is starting to fade as his sight is becoming hazy and the thirst is overwhelming. Stanley's nagging mockery and his vile nature as the three of them suffer the wrath of the conditions really paints him as a rotten nuisance. When Lucas grabs him and nearly strangles him for the location of the water (another key scene) makes sense considering what this bastard puts them through. It all results in the eating of dirt and a rather pat, implausible conclusion where every ends nice and tidy for the heroes. What other result could there really be, though? At home with his son as they draw from the ground water, Lucas' reaction is a great moment because it identifies an appreciation for something that we take for granted.