User Reviews

The episode begins on the streets of a western town where a cowpoke, John Hart, arrives and is getting off his horse. At the same time a rich looking couple, Neal Buckley and Rose Bailey, arrives in a buggy and accidentally comes close to hitting Hart. Buckley tries to apologies but ends up in a scuffle where Buckley gets the best of Hart. Hart vows to kill Buckley.

Later that evening, Buckley and his girlfriend Rose are walking down the street and Hart murders Buckley in front of Rose and nearly half the town. Sheriff Connors disarms Hart and takes him to jail. This does not set well with the townsfolk as they want instant justice. The Sheriff is determined to have Hart tried in court and the people of the town are determined to hang the killer. It may come to a showdown as the Sheriff is holding the criminal and members of the town are building a hanging platform.

A typical western show that faces the local Sheriff taking on a town set on a riot. The twist of the program is that the person they have in jail is not an innocent saint. Even viewers saw Hart gun down an unarmed man making the viewer have little regard for the jailed fiend. Paul Richards plays the killer and always does a great job with giving emotion to the story. A nice story made for a good watch.

Dick Powell reserved some of the best of his Zane Grey Theater stories for himself. The screenplay was written by future television mogul Aaron Spelling who apprenticed with Powell's Four Star Productions.

Paul Richards who usually played rather craven villains is especially craven as a drunken loser who murders the town's richest citizen in front of his fiancé Joan Taylor. With Taylor leading the lynch mob on, they're fixing to give Richards a necktie party.

Powell plays the sheriff of their small town and it is one of the noblest parts I've ever seen him play. He's a true western hero in this one with Deputy Willard Sage standing up to the mob. He also has a wonderful scene with Virginia Christine the wife of Richards who is resigned to her husband's fate. She only asks that he not be strung up. Beautifully played by both of them.

In his big screen career Dick Powell only went west three times. He did two musicals set in the modern west, Riding High and Cowboy From Brooklyn. He also did a very dark western noir type film Station West that is also outstanding. Seeing some of his work on Zane Grey Theater I wish he had done a few more westerns in his career.

One of the best of the Zane Grey features.