Season Three of Gunsmoke continues its distinctive trait of stories with darker themes with this fine episode.
Faro dealer Dan Clell and his wife Flora arrive in Dodge City. Faro was a popular gambling card game in the Old West. Faro dealers would usually pay saloon proprietors rent for the space to run their games. It was not unusual for law enforcement officials to run Faro games as a method of making additional income. Supposedly, John "Doc" Holliday ran a Faro game in Tombstone, Arizona during his time there. Faro fell out of favor, possibly due to the fact the game lended itself to cheating by both the dealers and the players. Over time, poker became the more popular game.
(Upon meeting Clell, Kitty Russell tells him she will only allow an honest game in the Long Branch Saloon. Clell is mildly insulted and tells Kitty he only deals an honest game. This exchange is a clear reference to the tendency for Faro dealers to cheat.)
When the normally mild mannered town drunk named Tom Cassidy sees Clell, Cassidy attempts to hit Clell with a whiskey bottle. In his drunken state, Cassidy ends up on the worst end of the exchange. Clell warns Cassidy he will be killed the next time he tries to attack Clell.
Clell wants to be the Faro dealer at the Long Branch. After Kitty Russell witnesses Clell's behavior toward Flora and Cassidy, she has reservations, but the Long Branch needs a Faro dealer. Kitty reluctantly agrees to allow Clell to work at the saloon.
Flora, who is much younger than her husband, is clearly in an undesirable situation with Clell. She tells Kitty and Matt Dillon she has known Clell for most of her life, and they married about a year earlier. Whenever Clell addresses his wife, he is rude, menacing, and possessive. Kitty and Matt learn she is unhappy and wants to get away from the man.
As the story progresses, two converging threads emerge. One part of the story concerns Kitty's and Matt's efforts to see that Flora gains her freedom from Clell's domination. The other portion concerns the mystery of Tom Cassidy's stubborn pursuit of Clell.
This episode once again features an extremely strong cast. John Dehner, who last appeared in the Season Three debut episode, plays the pitiable Tom Cassidy character in this installment. This appearance marks the fifth of twelve total appearances Dehner made in the series. Dehner is one of the greatest character actors of all time, and his range is on full display here. He could play pathetic drunks, as he does here, but he could also play menacing gunfighters, comedy roles, and scheming businessmen equally convincingly.
Ross Martin makes the first of two Gunsmoke appearances with his portrayal of Dan Clell in this story. Martin often played scheming, villainous characters in his extensive acting career, but he is best known for his role as the clever Artemus Gordon on The Wild Wild West series in the mid and late 1960s.
Peggy McCay plays Flora in this story. This is her first Gunsmoke role. She would not make another appearance in the series until Season Sixteen. Although the Flora character is supposed to be quite young in this episode, McCay was 31 at the time, only seven years younger than Ross Martin. According to the story, Clell was an adult when Flora was born.
Another familiar face in this episode is Barney Phillips, who appears for the second time in the series, but this is his first portrayal of Bill Pence, the co-owner of the Long Branch Saloon with Kitty. Phillips appeared in eight different Gunsmoke episodes, but only four where he played Pence.
Roxane Berard, an actress who was frequently compared to Audrey Hepburn, makes a brief appearance as Dorey, a woman who seems to have some romantic interest in Chester Goode. This is Berard's only Gunsmoke role. She was quite busy in television in the 1960s, but she pretty much quit acting after several television appearances in the mid 1960s with only an appearance in the series Get Smart in 1967 and a guest part in the series Bracken's World in 1970 after 1965.
The opening scene is where Chester and Dorey flirt with one another. Chester plays the guitar and sings a song at Miss Kitty's request.
"Bottleman" is another solid, dark John Meston story. (IMDB identifies Sam Peckinpah as the uncredited writer of the screenplay.) The Flora character is vintage Meston, as he often portrayed the Old West as a brutal, hostile environment for women.
An interesting tidbit in this story includes Matt's failure to capture an outlaw he was pursuing. He admits he even killed his horse in the process. He is forced to return to Dodge City on a stagecoach. Kitty makes a remark about him returning empty handed, to which Matt replies, "It's not the first time."
It is not surprising the highlight of this installment is Dehner's performance. It stands out even among the other outstanding performances in the episode. Dehner's Gunsmoke resume was extensive. He appeared as various characters in a large percentage of the radio broadcasts, as well as the twelve appearances in the television series.
