THE DAY THEY HANGED KID CURRY

Before I begin, I have to say I was working at a huge disadvantage on this episode because I discovered as I set about searching the internet for vidcaps that there were almost none available. I found one source, with a small cache of substandard vidcaps, that I thought I would be forced to use. I was all set to ask you all to forgive me for a piss-poor presentation this week and hang in there with me…until my sweetest, most giving friend on earth let me make her a list of what I needed and “custom snatched” some vidcaps for me to use. Everybody, blow Laura a kiss, please! She’ll feel 'em…

*keep in mind, please--vidcaps can only be as good as the video quality of the episode*

• Yippee!! Season two has begun!! I’m so glad to be back!
• Boy what a bustling and lively city San Francisco is in the opening scene. People milling about everywhere, the streets full of traffic. It was a big city even then, having literally doubled its population between 1870 and 1890 to 300,000. San Francisco is still an exciting city, and happens to be one of my three favorite in the whole world.
• How cute to see Monty Laird as the taxi driver. The poor man just could not act, but he is so charming in his attempt, I would forgive him anything. I love the way he inflects the line “Mr. O’Sullivan, just one question. How did an arwn-ry man like yoooou get the name of Silky?” And I positively adore the glimmer of a grin from Peter as Monty is saying the line—I feel certain that even though Heyes smiles just a fraction of a second later when Silky responds, it is Peter enjoying the moment as Monty utters the line. I have the feeling Mr. Laird was loved by everyone working on the show. ®



• I like the interaction between Heyes and Silky as they joke about the taxi fare. Heyes chides him that he really did give the driver a dollar and we feel their camaraderie and ease with each other right off the bat. I get the impression Heyes reveres “old-timers” and while he has a very healthy ego, he is never so arrogant as to believe he can’t learn something from their experience.



• I am disappointed by Heyes’ reaction to hearing there is bad news about Kid. A dispassionate “He’s not….?” from Peter doesn’t seem to me to be the reaction we would see in Heyes. I don’t think he would throw himself to the ground wailing, but I do think he would express more emotion in his voice when he is essentially asking if his partner is dead…
• What a typically female thing to say as the old woman in the court room gallery leans in to Heyes and says about Penelope Roach, “Lovely girl. But stupid.” Heyes is bemused by the comment; I don’t think the pettiness women can be known to exhibit is in the genetic makeup of most men.
• I wouldn’t have even recognized the prosecuting attorney as old Clarence from the upcoming Night of the Red Dog had it not been for his distinctive way of speaking. In fact, I was looking away, typing my notes, as I heard and recognized his voice and put two and two together. Nice to see he has teeth. *giggle*
• I enjoy Heyes comeback of “Oh, I do” when the old woman agrees with his assessment of the judge’s fairness by saying, “If you believe in coddling criminals.” He has such a cute look on his face when he says it, it just makes me smile. He said three words, but spoke volumes with his facial expressions as she got up and left.
• There is a "feel" about this whole episode that doesn’t settle well with me. It is an ok show on its own and I probably would have enjoyed it as a separate entity, but it doesn’t have the smooth feel of a typical Alias Smith and Jones episode. It feels unfamiliar in some odd way. Is Peter’s acting off a bit? In the first scene with Ben it seems affected…I see acting, which has rarely been the case with him. It feels like Peter acting like Hannibal Heyes, not being Hannibal Heyes, which he normally does so fully.
• Heyes being frisked by the overzealous deputy is priceless. He is practically molested by the man as he is painstakingly searched—poked, prodded and patted down in every conceivable way, in every possible hiding place on his body. Girls, is there one of us among us who wouldn’t have loved that job? And I laugh to myself when I think up a punch line in my own style—to see Heyes walk into the cell and stealthily open his jacket, letting the imposter and us know he has a gun…®

• I never could stand the actor playing the Kid Curry impersonator. But Robert Morse wins me over in this role. He really plays it well and I am moved by the story he tells Heyes in his cell. He only wants to be somebody, even if he has to die to realize that goal. He is a small man with a small existence, made exciting and noteworthy only by the deeds of someone whose life and celebrity he is emulating. It is an understandable draw, to have a moment in the sun, but I agree with Heyes and question whether dying for that moment is valid.



• Not knowing how these things work, I am fascinated by a full tub of bathwater, with bubbles, in a hotel room. More interesting to me than seeing the Kid naked and wet is how they get the water into the room in the first place—still hot and bubbly. And even more intriguing is how they get the water OUT of the tub…I would think carrying a tub of water to and from the room would be nearly impossible. Not only the weight, but the natural propensity of water to slosh when moved, would make it a very difficult and messy undertaking. Was there a crew of hotel employees with a water bucket brigade—before and after the patron took his soaking? It seems like a huge amount of work. I wonder how often people bothered to bathe in the 1880s.



• I love the look on Heyes’ face when he knows he has made a good point of logic to the Kid about what would happen if after “he” has been legally hanged some lawman who knows him sees him up and prancing around. Heyes gets a grin of triumph on his face and takes a drink of his whiskey because he knows he has hooked Kid with his reasoning.

• Kid will finally listen, and take the situation a “lot more serious.” And the Kid looks absolutely innocent and quite charming in his unawareness over why this situation isn’t any better for him than it is for Heyes. It takes Heyes explaining it to him; and when he does understand we realize it wasn’t self-centeredness on the Kid’s part at all. It was simply naiveté.

• I have discovered I am not a big fan of the director of this episode, Barry Shear. While some of his episodes are the best of the series, such as The Bounty Hunter, the camera angles often seem choppy and disjointed and I get a feeling he is experimenting with still frames and odd zooming and strange haziness of some of the shots. The incidences of it in this episode are not as obvious and jarring as they are in, most particularly, The Bounty Hunter, but they are distracting to me nonetheless. Looking through the spinning wheel at Kid as he enters the saloon would be a nice shot, except it suddenly goes out of focus, as if in zoom, and I suspect Mr. Shear was trying to give the sense of a big screen experience--a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid feel--rather than a TV episode. That scene and the sudden close up, out of focus, of Kyle as he sees the Kid in an upcoming scene are both just so poorly done they seem almost amateurish.
• I liked Kid’s first season hat better. The new hat reminds me too much of the flop hats we wore in the 70s and that silly looking disco-belt hatband is far from masculine in my eyes. I am aware that Ben designed his own hat. I forgive him. It was the seventies, after all. Now, Bennies, remember what I said in my disclaimer about differences of opinion being celebrated...
• Belinda Montgomery always struck me as a sweet young woman. I don’t know what else I have seen her in, but I have always been familiar with her and I think she was a fine actress. She might have made a nice love interest for the Kid in another episode. Somehow, even as attractive as she is, she doesn’t seem to me to be Heyes’ type.
• Did I miss something? Are the Devil’s Hole gang no longer residing in Devil’s Hole? Or have they just dwindled to the point of near extinction and allowed the once plush and vibrant Devil’s Hole Hideout (when led by either Hannibal Heyes or Big Jim Santana) to become a ghost town, complete with tumbleweeds and unhinged doors flapping in the wind?
• What a disappointment this actor playing Lobo is. The original actor, Bill McKinney, was only in three first season episodes, but we became familiar with him and he fit the role so well. This actor is sorely lacking in the weird charisma the original Devil’s Hole Gang had in spades. All those original actors, though they said very little, played very well off of each other and felt like a gang…
• I don’t know why, since it is becoming an old joke in this series, but I laugh when Heyes hits his hat and it billows with dust.
• May I just say I am very happy we have moved beyond the point in our history where a gallows was erected in the middle of the town square and the execution of a human being by one of the cruelest means possible was considered the most exciting entertainment around?
• I really enjoy the whole scene when Heyes revisits the imposter in his cell after the hanging is postponed. It is wonderful the way he allows the faker to grab him by the lapels and bring his message home, but then has his fill and with strong determination on his face turns the tables and grabs the man by his shirt and ever so masterfully sits him down and takes charge of the situation. And the awe expressed by the identity thief when he realizes he is in the presence of Hannibal Heyes is palpable and so well done by Robert Morse.
  

• It is a true laugh out loud moment for me as we see the boys, including Kyle and Wheat, lined up at the bar; Heyes with his hat pushed forward, shadowing his eyes and his lips pursed tight with frustration; Kid knowing there isn’t any point to asking if Heyes’ visit to the jail went well; Kyle in his usual state: clueless; and Wheat with an expression letting us know he is mulling over what the next step in the plan should be. What an image this is! Flawlessly lined up, set up with precision so that what each character says in this scene works to perfection. It is perfect, right up until the director experiments once again and zooms in so close on Wheat it detracts from what he is saying.

• Kyle is like a little kid as he puts a mustache on the wanted poster of Wheat in the telegraph office. Wheat always has to keep an eye on him and keep him out of innocent mischief. I like the relationship they have. Kyle is always wide eyed and full of questions and the perfect match for Wheat who needs to constantly build himself up in someone’s eyes. Their relationship and its dynamic were better expressed in The Pilot, but there are glimpses of it here that remind me of the fun these two characters add to the series.
• An absolutely ideal expression on the face of the imposter as the jail keeper announces his Grandmother is in town! The poor guy just wants to eat his soup and be allowed to die in peace and all these bogus relatives keep coming out of the woodwork! I laugh every time the actor turns to the camera and with ludicrously comical look on is face says, “My Grandmother?” ®



• It’s bizarre, but Grandma Curry reminds me a bit of my own Grandma! Ol’ Walter Brennan did a good job in the dual role. The elderly flirting between Grandma and the sheriff is more than just a bit creepy, though.
• I like the opportunity to see Heyes’ prowess with a gun. He easily gets the drop on two lawmen with guns. And aren’t we all just so proud of him when he deftly opens the safe while being harangued by the sheriff? He is certainly a man of many skills.





• The entire encounter between the Kid and the elderly livery stable owner is just superb. The old man’s voice and cadence tickle me right off the bat, and Kid’s patience and attempt to get the old cuss to be quiet is so fitting of his character. In every encounter where he has to take an upper hand, the Kid always tries to first give his opponent a way out. Here he looks at the old guy, who’s giving him an unending tirade, with an expression of annoyance and resolve and says, “Are you gonna be quiet?” before simply placing a bucket over the head of the man, making his rant even more amusing with its odd echo. Truly funny, and on a whole, just flawless.

• I wish the video were of better quality in this episode. I suspect Robert Morse was playing his facial expressions to the hilt when Heyes cut off his air to make him be quiet—but the scene is so dark and the video so poor, I can’t see it enough to enjoy it.
• It is cute when Heyes finally opens the impenetrable can with a hatchet, and I know if I don’t mention it, one of my readers will say, “but you missed my favorite scene…”
• That’s a pretty damn smart bunch of bumpkins…their fire moat was a complex idea I didn't expect from them. I have never seen a more ingenious, well organized posse in my life.

  

• I am completely captivated with Robert Morse’s quirky characterization of Fred Philpotts. The way he tells the judge his name and then with over the top, but perfect, exaggeration of his expression and movement where he is really from is just incredible.
• I don’t know if it was the directing, the writing, or even the poor video quality, but this episode simply left me wanting, and the best part of it for me is just the path it leads us down to the wonderful episodes ahead in the second season…