User Reviews

THE RIFLEMAN - The Angry Gun - 1961

This is the 13th episode from the 1958 to 1963 western series, THE RIFLEMAN. Over the course of 168 episodes we follow the life of Lucas McCain and his son, Mark. They have moved to the small western town of North Fork where they hope to start a new life. Chuck Connors headlines the series with Johnny Crawford as his son. Connors is a world class hand with a Winchester rifle which of course ends up getting him in no end of trouble.

Chuck Connors and his son, Johnny Crawford, are taking the stagecoach home from a cattle sale. Also on the stage are Marshall Joe Quinn and a prisoner. The prisoner, Vic Morrow, is a gunman who likes killing.

When the stage stops to water the horses, several men, Gregory Walcott and Leo Gordon appear out of the underbrush. They shoot the Marshall and free Morrow. Morrow helps himself to Connors' rifle as well as the proceeds of the cattle sale. The three gunmen mount up and head up into the hills.

Connors helps the wounded Quinn onto the stage and sends it and his son to town. He takes a canteen and starts following the crooks on foot. He knows the country around here pretty good, and figures he can cut cross country and head them off. He soon catches up with the crooks but is seen before he can close with them. Morrow uses Connors' own rifle and send a few rounds Connors' way. Connors hits the ground as if hit.

While Morrow and Gordon ride on, Walcott comes down to have a look at Connors. Needless to say Connors is playing possum. A quick dust up soon has Walcott laid out. Connors grabs Walcott's horse and rides off in pursuit.

He flanks Morrow and Gordon and sets up a trap. Connors starts an avalanche which quickly takes Gordon out of the picture. Morrow hides up in some rocks and waits for Connors to show himself. Connors gets the drop on Morrow and gives him a fatal gut wound. After Morrow expires, Connors picks up his rifle and the stolen cash, then, returns to North Fork.

This is a very well done episode with Morrow really shining as the villain. Always enjoy seeing Leo Gordon in anything. He really was one of the great movie and television nasty types.

While returning home via stagecoach after a successful sale of herd, Lucas and his boy are riding with a cocksure braggart, arrested and handcuffed to a marshal. Soon the crook's gun-toting associates interrupt a brief stop for rest and water, shooting the marshal, freeing him, taking Lucas' cash and loot on the stagecoach. He also takes Lucas' rifle, a big no-no. Lucas sends his son with the coach and injured marshal, pursuing the taken cash and money. Mainly a fun guest vehicle for Vic Morrow, as the confident, grinning, assured heel, quite aware Conners is coming after him, clearly looking for a gunfight. Leo Gordon wishes Morrow would take him seriously while Walcott is dispatched early when left to try and disrupt the determined Conners. The use of an avalanche and a brilliant strategy involving a plank of wood with a hole just big enough for a pistol handle and a little stick for measuring distance allow Lucas to get the better of his quarry. Morrow's teasing and jawing leaves him the perfect candidate to get a good comeuppance. Clearly Conners didn't want this to resort to violence and such but they went too far. Always good use of hot desert environs to emphasize the conditions of the old west and how treacherous territory can be a nuisance to both straight and crooked folks on both sides of the moral fence.

Just watched this episode - The Rifleman: Season 1, Episode 13 The Angry Gun (23 Dec. 1958) - on MeTV. Vic Morrow (Sgt. Chip Saunders from Combat) was in it!! Oh, baby:-0 He played bad guy Johnny Cotton. In the end, Lucas McCain shoots and kills him after Johnny stole his money he had gotten from selling his herd. He also stole Lucas' (gasp!) Rifle!! Morrow was great as the bad guy; even playing a stalking type game with Lucas. The end was very touching as his son, Mark, ran to his pa when Lucas came down the road on one of the bandit's horses.

Not only a great episode because of the storyline, but Vic played his part extremely well as a badass who also had a wicked laugh.

Also noteworthy: the way Lucas was quick to think and it was ingenious the way he rigged the pistol, which he had to make do, as Cotton still had his rifle.

Overall a good episode but there is something that has always irritated me about this one. Putting a pistol butt into the hole at the front end of a long board, even if you use a small stick to help aim it, does NOT turn it into a rifle or make it anywhere near as accurate as one, just because it's a pistol with its butt stuck into the hole at the end of a long board. It just doesn't.

That's because it still has a much, much shorter barrel than a rifle. It's the longer barrel of a rifle, with the more rifling, that makes the rifle more accurate at distance than a handgun, not the just sights. Putting his pistol butt into a hole at the end of a long board doesn't improve its distance accuracy any more than holding it at arms length does. It still don't make it a rifle. It just don't work like that.

Other than that...