The Hidecutters

It was Cliff Osmond as Chunk. He was in several Westerns over the years.

I thought this was a good episode, but without jumping to an ending and spoilers, I just want to say that I also felt like a huge chunk was missing here.

I am actually watching these episodes on "You Tube" in order, and the early ones were either DVD episodes, or taken from a western channel. After color started, TV Land seemed to own most of them. When it was not TV Land, they episodes were 48 minutes long. The TV Land episodes always hack away six minutes so they can show more commercials. Usually it's a piece here, a piece there, with just a blip that lets you know that somebody had to sell some life insurance or a walker or something.

But this one does take a huge jump. I think it was the cable channel.

Nevertheless, it was a good episode with some people who went on to better things. One thing my wife and I wonder about, though. The "Chunk" character is credited to an actor name Cliff Osmond. We were sure it was Roger Carmel, who played "Harry Mudd" in the "Star Trek" series. Has anyone else noticed this?

Festus Haggen is on a hunting trip when he is caught in an avalanche. One of his legs is severely injured, and he is partially buried in rocks to the point where he cannot free himself. A group of sadistic hide cutters led by a man named Chunk comes along shortly afterwards. They are amused at the plight of Festus. A young man named Arlie Joe is traveling with the group. He defies Chunk's orders and helps free Festus. After he returns to the group, Chunk knocks Arlie Joe to the ground with a backhanded slap across the face, and Festus can see from a distance how the young man is rewarded for his good deed.

Festus is overdue for his return in Dodge City, and Matt Dillon is searching for him. Marshal Dillon encounters the despicable, deceitful hide cutters, but they deny any knowledge of the whereabouts of Festus, and Arlie Joe is so intimidated by Chunk, he joins in the denial.

Soon, the Marshal finds a group of drovers moving cattle toward Dodge. They have found Festus, tended to his leg, and are transporting him in one of their wagons. The hide cutters are following the drovers in the hopes of stealing some or all the herd for the hides. The drovers are aware of the nearby presence of the hide cutters and know the danger they present. Chunk's group is careful to avoid doing anything blatant that could provide justification to the drovers to attack them.

Arlie Joe is the central figure around which the story is built. He is fed up with the abuse handed out by Chunk and the other despicable men traveling with him, but as is often the case with someone who is being seriously abused, he is too afraid to do anything about it. Matt astutely assesses the situation and realizes if he can separate Arlie Joe from the rest of the contemptible group, there is hope for his future. Matt is sympathetic to Arlie Joe's situation, because someone helped him when he was young.

The challenges Matt faces include accompanying the drovers on a long trek to Dodge, preventing the drovers from taking illegal actions against the hide cutters while preventing the hide cutters from accomplishing their goal of stealing cattle, and doing what he can to help Arlie Joe. The situation is more complicated by the fact that the leader of the drovers -- a man named Amos McKee -- is intent on taking matters in his own hands with the hide cutters, which puts him at odds with the Marshal.

It has been a while since we have seen a group of vile characters like the hide cutters on Gunsmoke. Of course, there have been gangs of outlaws seeking fortune, but one has to go back to the Ginnis clan in Season 9's "No Hands" to find a group that apparently reveled in sadism and abuse as a bizarre form of twisted amusement as Chunk and his companions do toward Arlie Joe.

Michael Burns last appeared in a Gunsmoke episode in Season 13's "Nowhere to Run." Burns is great as the Arlie Joe character in this episode. He would play a nearly identical character later in Season 15's "The Thieves."

Cliff Osmond has no trouble portraying the nasty, mean Chunk character in this story. His "who me?" demeanor lends to the underlying deceitful nature that defines the character.

The other members of the hide cutter group are all familiar actors that frequently appeared on Gunsmoke as less-than-stellar characters: Conlan Carter as Bodiddly (Carter also appeared in the aforementioned "No Hands" episode as the same kind of character), Ken Swofford as Sugar John, and Eddie Firestone as Weevil.

Joseph Campanella is the leader of the drovers, Amos McKee in this story. Campanella was certainly no stranger to television as he appeared in many television shows from the early days of television into the early 2000s. I always think of him as Lew Wickersham, the head of the high-tech detective agency "Intertect" and Joe Mannix's often exasperated boss in the first season of Mannix. Gregg Palmer and Steve Raines, two actors that show up frequently on Gunsmoke, play two of the drovers working for McKee.

I do not understand the complaints of the other reviewers about the edit near the end. I will not spoil the surprise, but, while it is abrupt, it makes sense within the context of the story. We do get another scene earlier in the story where someone in a disadvantaged position with a pistol takes on several others with rifles shooting over some distance, and the pistol-wielding person somehow prevails, but that situation is not too uncommon in Westerns.

While there is nothing ground-breaking in this episode, it is a compelling story that is acted and handled well.

"The Hide Cutters" is yet another variation on an oft-played theme -- the basically decent member of a group of rotters who wants to get free. Only in this case, the young man is almost as distrustful of the good guys as the bad.

Another variation is that the four "principals" -- Matt, the young man, the drovers, and the hide cutters -- are at odds with each other. The drovers are almost as bad as the cutters, looking for any opportunity to kill them, even if it's not legally "justified".

Contrary to what the other reviewer states, the hard cut makes perfect sense. Earlier, Matt and/or McKee said that their argument would be resolved in Dodge -- and it is. Granted, a build-up would have been more interesting, but anyone who's been paying attention knows exactly what's going on. Besides, they had to leave time for the Doc/Festus bickering.

Not a great episode, but an entertaining one. I particularly liked the sequence in which Festus is caught in a rock slide. It's shown from the side, rather than head-on, with rocks tumbling down in the background. It appears the producers budgeted for schlepping rocks up the mountain and tossing them off at the right moment.

This story has been done before. The villains in this episode are not very good. Cliff Osmond has to be one of the worst actors in television history. He was a tall fat guy with a pock-marked face who was a lot grosser than he was menacing. He plays the leader of the hide-cutters. His acting style was very lazy and boring to watch.

His minions are Ken Swofford, who was another actor that usually played annoying characters who were disagreeable. Not scary or menacing, just jerks. The next thug is Conlan Carter, who plays some kind of inbred hillbilly lackey in this episode. He hollers and makes funny remarks and acts like a cheap imitation of Festus. Not a scary guy. Finally we get to villain #4, Eddie Firestone. Just another loser character who usually played town vagrants, hotel clerks, informants, and lackeys. Not a scary guy.

So these hide-cutters are the B Team or more likely the C Team of Gunsmoke villains. On any given day, Matt Dillon could beat them all up with one arm tied behind his back.

The joker in the deck is young Michael Burns, who is an orphan that the group picked up and is constantly abusing, as they mold him into another henchman. Michael Burns became a history professor who taught at Mount Holyoke College until he retired in 2002.

The good guys are the drovers whose herd is being attacked. Joseph Campanella is the ramrod, and Steve Raines (of Rawhide fame) is one of the drovers. They are getting their cows killed off by the hidecutters who follow the herd, and they are pissed off and want revenge.

Matt Dillon rides into this mess searching for Festus, who got his leg broken in a landslide at the beginning of the episode. Like usual, Dillon comes down hard on any "vigilante action" by Campanella. As often happens, Dillon later discovers that the bad guys whose rights he is protecting want to kill him too.

The ending is really good. Lots of action, and redemption for Michael Burns, when he finally realizes that Cliff Osmond and the rest of the gang are just evil people.