Have Gun - Will Travel (TV Series) Marshal of Sweetwater (1962) User Reviews

Which devil is better

[pensman · 7/10 · 21 July 2016]

It's Larry Tate from Bewitched and he's marshal Tom Carey here, and he is faster than Paladin, and he keeps order in the town, and he is Paladin's oldest friend, but he has a really bad flaw. It seems that the old saloon keeper made a quick out of town deal by selling his losing business to Marie Ellis (Kathie Browne an actress best known for being in a Star Trek episode and for being married to Darren McGavin). Ellis runs counter to the way Marshal Carey runs his town: he is a law and order marshal, but it's his law and his order. Paladin ever the protector of "freedom," finds himself on a collision course with his old friend. At no level is this a happy ending. Carey has gone too far (a theme Gene Rodenberry, the writer of this episode, explored in several Star Trek episodes) but the town handed itself over to him; now it's up to Paladin to release them from their deal with the computer, I meant the marshal. But all of this for Marie Ellis seems too much as soon she will enslave the town with booze and loose women.

I think that this was an episode about hypocrisy.....

[ac-44715 · 8/10 · 5 August 2020]

....and freedom of choices that balance precariously on a double edged sword. The marshall ran the town with an iron fist to presumably keep law and order. Yet he was willing to relax rules to suit his purposes and fancies. The drinking before 7 pm or even allowing a saloon and so called place of ill-repute if he could have the woman who happened to be the new owner. The previous owner, a man, presumably had to leave town and sell the place because business was bad under the marshall's rules....

Pretty Good

[dougdoepke · 12 October 2011]

Paladin arrives in town along with shady lady (Browne) where he finds old army buddy (White) now the marshal. Trouble is the marshal is running the town behind a set of righteous rules that only he makes. In short, the ageing guy has turned into a fast-draw tyrant. Paladin's offended, especially when the marshal picks on the shady lady, but will he challenge his old comrade-in-arms.

Pretty good episode. The kittenish Browne manages a head of steam when her character needs to. Frankly, White doesn't manage the force needed to be a persuasive tyrant. Still some tension arises as we watch their old friendship sour. But will there be a showdown, and if so, what will Paladin do since the marshal seems a hair faster.