Stagecoach West (TV Series) Blind Man's Bluff (1961) User Reviews

Blind Man's Bluff

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 19 March 2024]

With these episodic western television series. You always wonder how it is going to end. They can only go up a few tried and trusted avenues.

The final episode of Stagecoach West does try something different although it is not entirely new.

Stace (James Drury) is the blind drifter with his loyal dog. He is fast with his gun and games it so he can get people to draw. He has come to town looking for his girl, Della Bell.

She is a saloon singer and now married to Harmony Bell, her older piano playing husband. They have been fleeing town to town wanting to avoid Stace. He wants to gun down Harmony Bell for marrying his girl.

Now an agent has also come to the Outpost looking for Della. Both Luke and Simon chase him on a wild goose chase.

It turns out that Della ran out on Stace over something unsavoury. Now Stace wants revenge. Harmony Bell wants to confront Stace even if it kills him. If that is not enough the dog becomes ill.

There are no out and out villains. Everyone is painted as likeable. There is even a humorous side plot of an English accented Hong Kong native working in the bar who knows kung fu.

So the ending is not entirely out of the blue but at least it is conceptually different.

An entertaining episode from all angles.

[kfo9494 · 10/10 · 10 August 2016]

In one of the series best shows, James Drury gives a great performance as a blind man out in the rural west with intentions of killing. Mr Drury plays a man named Stace that is known as great shooter even though he is totally blind. We learn that Stace robbed a business sometime back and was found guilty of the crime. He was sent to prison for many years. Stace was clinging to the hope that one day he will be release from prison and return to his girl, Della, who has the stolen money and he will marry her and live happily for the rest of their lives.

But things do not go as planned. While in prison Stace went blind. And after he was release from prison, he found out that his girl, Della (Ruta Lee) had married an older man and wants nothing to do with him. This does not set well with Stace. The only way he knows to get back with Della is to kill the man that she married.

Stace along with his eye-dog, is now riding the west looking for Della and her husband, Harmony Bell. Since Harmony plays the piano and Della sings, they have been traveling from town-to-town entertaining the saloons. They stay in a town until Stace makes an appearance and then they move on. This time they are at Outpost and Harmony is tired of running. The piano player, even at a poor disadvantage, will finally face the man that is gunning for him.

Even with this short review this episode seems enjoyable. But there is much more to this story that will make this episode one of the most entertaining situations the viewer has witnessed. The writer even found time to throw in some humor which has been lacking form the series. This is an episode that you have to watch to get the full effect. From beginning to the eventful ending, this episode was pleasing. One of the better shows in the series run.

Average

[Picgoer · 5/10 · 9 August 2022]

This series is not an unpleasant way to waste half an hour and a good medium to spot reasonably well known faces making guest appearances and those before or after their hey day.

In this episode it's not clear why Whit Bissell decided to practice a Scottish accent as it adds nothing to the story. He referred to his ancestors as 'Scotch' which no person from Scotland or of Scottish ancestry would do. Scotch is the drink! It's equally strange that Lloyd Kino would try a poor 'Cockney' accent, to what purpose?

Other than that it had a nice mix of stories, a bit more on rabies might have been interesting.