BreakDown Gunsmoke 55-64: Home Surgery S1Ep4

In this episode of Gunsmoke, Matt and Chester find themselves far from Dodge City, hungry and on edge, when a young woman named Holly arrives asking for help. Her father, injured and sick, has been waiting a week for a doctor who never returned. Assessing the situation, Matt agrees to stay, while Chester forages for food. Inside the cabin, Matt discovers Mr. Hawtree’s leg is infected and realizes amputation is the only way to save him. With Holly and her father assisting, they improvise surgical tools and stitch blood vessels with horsehair, giving him alcohol for courage and antisepsis. As Matt operates, Chester and Holly grapple with the tension of waiting, and finally, the surgery succeeds. Later, when the father dies peacefully, Holly faces her loss while Matt confronts the threatening suitor Ben, forcing him into custody. The story asks: how far will one go to save a life, and how do courage and ingenuity meet the harsh realities of frontier medicine? 

Transcript

Jennifer 0:11

Welcome back to breakdown on Gunsmoke 55 to 64. We'll be looking at each episode of the show, aiming to tackle the first nine to ten seasons. If possible, it's a lot of TV, folks. I'm Jennifer Packard, a fan of gunsmoke and a nerd when it comes to classic TV. I am not an encyclopedia, but I've watched a ton of TV. And I love deep diving into TV history.

Steve 0:36

I'm Steve Ladshaw, filmmaker, historian, and gunsmoke watcher for my entire life. We'll be diving into the iconic episodes of this show, One at a Time.

Jennifer 0:47

Today we're looking at home surgery, which aired October 8th, 1955. This episode came from the radio show, which aired September 13, 1952, with the same name. So in this episode, there is no boot hill opening. Our first shot is Chester sleeping and waking to find Matt up and drinking coffee and then offering it to him. They're both hungry. They haven't eaten, and Chester is always talking about food, especially as we go on through the show. He says there's nothing to eat in 100 miles from Dodge, no antelope, anything. So we find out that they have returned a prisoner and are far from home when someone takes a shot at them. They take cover, they've they're looking. Matt says that it's a sharps 44. So he's got a good ear for that. As they look and wait, a young woman rides up on a horse. She's in pigtails and she's wearing pants. So they kind of face off, and Matt finally puts his gun away, and then Chester, and then the woman puts her gun down. Matt offers the lady coffee, and this kind of settles things down, and the woman gets off her horse and walks over to their fire. They talk, and Matt finally introduces himself and his title as Marshall, but the lady doesn't really recognize either, doesn't mean anything to her. She asks for help. Her daddy is sick in bed with an injured leg, a horse stepped on his foot, and his leg was scratched. Matt looks like he knows what's going on with the sickness and agrees to help, but he doesn't say anything yet. So now we know that the girl, her name is Holly, and that she was out looking for food. Matt asks Chester to go look for food and kill a calf, any calf, if he has to. Chester goes off to saddle his horse and to do that job. We cut to them arriving at the house, Matt and Holly. And Holly asks Matt to help and not just look and leave. She stresses that. And Matt is like, okay, you know, Matt enters the cabin and he introduces himself to Mr. Hawtree, her dad. And he recognizes the name Dylan. He doesn't feel good, but his foot and leg no longer hurt. He asks Matt if he was in the war. And they mean the Civil War. And Matt nods.

Speaker 3:12

Mr. Hawtree says, We both know what gangrene looks like. And he does kind of pull up the blanket so he can take a look. Matt offers to help him into a wagon and take him to Dodge, and that's when Holly explains that hired hand, Ben Walling, left with the wagon to get a doctor, but it's been days. Seven days. Matt says food is coming, but dad says he's not hungry. So they get him to rest. And Matt asks Holly about Ben. And dad doesn't like Ben because Ben wants to marry Holly, but Holly kind of thinks he's creepy, but that's my word, not hers. Chester returns with prairie chickens, which I had to look up. It's a type of grouse and some rabbits. So Chester and Matt discuss how the dad can be saved. And this is outside of the cabin in the fresh air. Chester urges Matt to commit to surgery because he has faith that Matt can, there's nothing Matt can't do. So removal of the leg seems like a logical thing that he should do. Matt resists at first, but eventually he does agree. So Matt and Chester talk to Mr. Halltree. The dad thinks he has blood poisoning, so he agrees to the amputation. The dad witnessed many amputations in the army, so he tells Matt what to do, basically. They decide to use horse hairs for stitching up the blood vessels. And the dad has a jug of booze, and they get him drinking as much as he can. So the dad remembers being drunk at Lincoln's death in 1865, which I thought was a nice little history note there. Holly and her dad exchange a few words. So in the other room, as Matt operates, Chester and Holly talk. Waiting is hard. Boy, what an eternal truth. And after the surgery, Matt emerges and he's not very bloody because it is TV, and he says the dad is well and needs to rest. They all go outside for some air. Actually, Holly goes to go talk to her dad while Chester and Matt go outside. Four to five hours later, the dad is peaceful, and then Ben returns with the wagon telling a story that the first night the horses ran off, and it took him that long to find the horses, so he thought he'd return to check on Holly. Matt warns Ben to stay away from the house for now. Ben agrees, but he tells them they can go and he'll take care of everything. But he takes the cart and he, you know, probably just rides it off to the barn. Matt shows and explains to Chester that someone cut Mr. Holltree's saddle strap, insinuating that it is Ben's fault. Holly comes out and asks them to go see her dad. Matt talks to the dad who thinks his heart has been poisoned. He asks Matt to take care of Holly, and Matt promises it to care for her. Holly is there for her dad's last words as Matt and Chester wait outside. As they talk, Ben comes up from behind them with a rifle. Ben and Matt face off, and Matt verbally maneuvers him to try to drop the gun, but winds up grabbing the gun and then it discharging and then getting the gun. Chester takes charge of Ben. And I just kept thinking, man, Chester should have moved. When that shotgun went off, how did he not get hit? But yeah, that's me just being nitpeky, I guess. So basically, the dad has died, and Matt and Chester help Holly pack up the wagon. And with Ben in Cuffs, they leave the house, and she has a little cluster of flowers in her hand that she took from her dad's grave. And she asks Matt if that was okay. And I don't know, it really touched me that Matt said he has a whole prairie full of flowers now.

Steve 7:09

It was it was a beautiful line. And uh yeah, I we should pause here. There's a when you talk about Ben Wallach, there's a moment early in the film when they're in the cabin, and Matt asks Holly what she thinks of Ben Wallack. And she has a line that describes what he, and I it's a great line, and I can't remember what it is.

Jennifer 7:38

Holly said in reference to Ben, he's kind of like putting your hand in a flower bin and then and getting bit by something. So it's a different kind of spin on the villain.

Steve 7:50

He's a very disturbing character. He's the kind of character you would see in a film today or a TV show today. You know, possibly a serial killer, no, no good points, perverse, uh, a liar. In those days, typically the villains that you would see in in TV shows in particular were stock villains. You know, they were out for money, they were a bad guy, they were gonna kill you, they had no morals, but they did have, they weren't creepy psychotic psychopaths like this guy. And this very early on, you know, I I expected her to say in that scene with Matt early on where he asks her about him, oh, I'm I'm in love with him, you know. Dad doesn't understand, and he's but she actually says, you know, he kind of creeps me out. So that that was an interesting way to go, and it was very well played by the actor who played.

Jennifer 8:44

It was actually kind of refreshing that she wasn't in love with him because some of these episodes, these oh, but I love him, and you're like, no.

Steve 8:52

Yeah, yeah, it was just a tremendous characters in this, and it's a small, such a small cast in this thing, too. I mean small number of characters, and uh, I guess we could talk later about right king and and some of the other actors, but I I just it was just such a creepy character. I it it's like I'm following the story all the way through, but when Ben Walling shows up at the end, as soon as Matt starts talking to him, you know this guy's a liar, you know this guy, there's you can't trust anything this guy's gonna say. Yeah, and even the way he's dressed in his body language, yeah, you instantly pink him out. This is the creepiest person, you know, in the room.

Jennifer 9:29

As soon as he drives away, Chester kind of speaks for us. He's like, Mr. Dylan, that man's a liar. You're like absolutely. Oh, well, to repeat myself, this episode is based on a radio show of the same name that aired September 13th, 1952. So they changed just a little bit of the script. Yeah, it's it's I I know that they changed the character name of Holly. Uh she's actually uh Tara or Tara hawt tree in the radio show. But it it just watching it, it looks like it doesn't look like they've changed a lot because this storyline I think could play very well in a radio setting, you know.

Steve 10:12

Very nice. It's it's not dependent on visuals. So yeah.

Speaker 10:16

I've definitely listened to this one more than a few times, so it's pretty much you know, it's the same story. But it's interesting how they decided to change the names just for TV. Maybe Holly was really popular at that time. I don't know.

Steve 10:32

Now I'm really curious about this other villain that we talked about, gangrene.

Jennifer 10:38

Well, it does seem to be that gangrene is a localized death and decomposition of body tissue. So it results from either obstructed circulation or blood flow or a bacterial infection. So this kind of infection can lead to sepsis, formerly known as blood poisoning. And blood poisoning is a life-threatening infection that occurs when bacteria, viruses, or fungi are causing an infection in another part of your body, but it enters your bloodstream. And of course, this is an oversimplified explanation.

Steve 11:12

You know, it's interesting that gangrene and sepsis blood poisoning has been used as a dramatic device in so many westerns. About three years after this year, there was a John Ford, John Wayne film called The Horse Soldiers. And there's a there's a character in that film that has blood poisoning. He doesn't keep the poultice on like he's supposed to, and the doctor played by William Holden, warns him you're gonna get blood poisoning, and you know, you're gonna die. And uh, and also as late as Lonesome Dove. Remember the end of that show, um, Robert Duvall's character has got blood poisoning, and his options are you gotta cut off the leg, and he doesn't want to live that way. Yeah, and so he opts to die. So this has been used in westerns for many, many years. It must have been common because they didn't have antibiotics. Uh, penicillin wasn't around just yet. Cuts and things. I mean, mortality was so much more of a daily life kind of thing. Uh you're in a barnyard, you've got all of this other kind of bacteria, the horse or something cuts or nicks you and injures you, and poof, yeah. Ugh.

jennfer and steve 12:23

Well, let's talk about the cast. Sure. Um, Gloria Talbot played Holly Hotry. She was an excellent act actress, or actor, as we should say. Um, she she was what you would call a thinking person's actor. She did some incredible work um in various genres. One of her most famous films was I Married a Monster from Outer Space, which was was actually a very well-written film that came out in the late 50s where she marries the man of her dreams, who happens to be an alien. She's got great Western credentials. She did Arizona Rangers with Audie Murphy, Tattle Empire with Joel McCrae, and just about every Western TV show that they made. Um, including, I believe, three gunsmokes. Joe DeSantis, who played uh Holly's father, again did a ton of TV. He did four episodes of Gunsmoke. But his the best compliment he ever got on his work was from Frank Sinatra. They did a movie in the late 70s called Contract on Cherry Street, and Sinatra pulled him aside at one point and said, Joe, you should have played The Godfather. And and DeSantis, that was a comment that DeSantis cherished for the rest of his life. Now the guy the guy that plays the the uh creepy villain is Mike King was was a he was a World War II Navy vet. He he worked constantly in TV through his career. But the most interesting career Turney had was when in the second season of Want a Dead or Alive, they were having trouble getting McQueen to come to the set because McQueen by this point wanted a big movie career. He he was done with his show, so to try to keep him in line and try to expand the appeal, they brought in, they hired Wright King to come in and play basically his sidekick. And I I think he did about nine episodes before they got rid of him, but uh very gifted actor.

Jennifer 14:24

Just a side note, the Sharps rifle is a legendary breech loading rifle. It's known for its accuracy and reliability, particularly during the Civil War and the American West. And it's got its own page on Wikipedia. So yeah, I grew up around living history, but it was uh revolutionary war. So it was muskets, and those were all the opposite front loading, you know, and then breech loading. I had to, it took me a moment, and then I'm like, oh, got it.

Steve 14:52

Well, great episode today. This was this was uh a fun, fun episode of Gunsmoke to to watch and great cast.

Jennifer 14:59

Yeah, it was just interesting to see the dynamics and how they deal with just life trials and tribulations. But I thought, depending on where your mood is at the end of the episode when Holly has the flowers and Matt says it, it might be a little punch to the gut and you might be going, Sniffle.

Steve 15:19

It's it's a wonderful line, and it's it's a it's a wonderful moment because she's carrying those flowers that she took from his grave, and it's like, I hope he you don't think he I don't think he he'll mind, and Matt says, you know, he's not gonna mind. He's spit all he's with them all. So many different high points in this episode, and then and then to end on that sort of emotional high point after all the the drama and and action, it it's really it was really an amazing way to end it.

Jennifer 15:55

Another good episode, and this is why gunsmoke was a trailblazer. Next time we'll be diving into another episode from season one, Obie Tater. So don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review if you like what you hear.

Steve 16:10

If you have any thoughts or memories about gunsmoke or questions for us, feel free to reach out on social media or drop us an email. We'd love to hear from you.

Jennifer 16:19

Thanks for tuning into Breakdown Gunsmoke. We hope you'll join us again next time as we dig deeper into the wild world of Dodge City, Kansas.

Steve 16:29

Until then, keep your boots on the ground and your six shooter at your side. See you next time.