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Story by JOEL ROGOSIN Directed by DON McDOUGALL Produced by JOEL ROGOSIN Cast
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William Smith as Spector |
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Story by JOEL ROGOSIN Directed by DON McDOUGALL Produced by JOEL ROGOSIN Cast
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William Smith as Spector |
Okay, we know Bill was only third billed here but he's always first Bill with us. And this is his site. The other stars of this episode were:
James Daley |
Geraldine Brooks |
Bob Random |
The only regulars to make significant appearances were James Drury and Sara Lane. [Lane played Elizabeth Grainger from 1966-1970.] There's one shot of Trampas on a rearing horse which is almost certainly footage from another episode.
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The Widow Della Price has worried the Cattlemen's Association by allowing Carstairs, an oil man, to sink a test well on her property near Badger Creek. It has the potential for contaminating the water in that whole part of the valley. When the Virginian voices their concerns about Carstairs to Mrs. Price, she lets him know that her foreman, Spector [Bill] trusts him. We get a quick picture of what kind of man Spector is when a fight spills out of the saloon.
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Spector is fighting with Harper, a smaller man from Shiloh. Quite improbably Harper knocks Spector down and Spector goes for his gun. He's stopped by the Virginian and stalks off. The fight started when Harper told Spector they found some Price ranch strays and drove them back to the Price spread. That would usually earn a man a drink rather than a fist. The Virginian speculates that they're worried about someone tampering with their oil well and he's worried that Spector appears to be making the decisions.
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That night Mrs. Price voices her concern for the welfare of her neighbors to Carstairs and Spector. Spector obviously doesn't care about them and tries to persuade his boss that her neighbors don't care about her either. She should sell out and travel, live in Europe or New York. When she hesitates, its clear Carstairs is looking to Spector to change her mind. Spector tells Carstairs outside that she's lonely and the signs are favorable for him. Although there's "nothing improper" they do call each other Jim and Della in private.
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In the meantime Dan Sheppard an old friend of Della and a professional photographer has come to Shiloh to photograph a real working ranch. [The title "Silver Image" comes from the silver nitrate used in photography.] He has a confrontation with Spector and his cohort when he strays onto Price property. When Sheppard gets the upper hand, Spector pulls a gun and once again the Virginian thwarts him.
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Once Della and Sheppard get together, a romance begins which causes Spector to fear that his plans with the oil man might be endangered. He and two of his men beat him up when he comes to visit but Della comes to his rescue. Apparently they might have been married when young but he got the itch to take a job on a riverboat and she didn't wait for him.
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It is ultimately Sheppard who makes Della realize through his photos how much her husband loved her. And it was her feeling that he might not have which made her willing to sell out to the oil interests.
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Because this is an hour script made into an hour and half episode, we get lots of filler. And lucky for us, although some of the filler involves Sheppard's son, a lot of it involves Spector. We see Spector bemoaning the fact that he gambled away the money entrusted to him to buy stock for the ranch and coming up with schemes for keeping out of jail.
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Spector tries to hit up Carstairs for more money but is turned down. Nothing too exciting there, except we get to see Bill do one of his classic Joe Riley scissors vaults onto his horse. To turn Della against the ranchers, he sends his cohort to blow up the oil well, assuming they'll take the blame and she'll be more anxious to sell to Carstairs. Once she signs the sales contract, Carstairs will give him the money.
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However, disappointed that her romance with Sheppard isn't going quite as she hoped, Della goes to Spector's room in the bunkhouse and tells him she'll sign. He offers her a drink and makes a clearly unwelcome suggestion that she'll want to get away from Wyoming with the money and needn't travel alone. Just as we might fear for Della's safety, Spector remembers what he sent his cohort to do and tries too late to stop him.
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Spector tries to slick the Sheriff out of suspecting him of the explosion, ensuing fire and oil contaminated water but the Virginian adds evidence to the accusations and Della won't back up his phony alibi. The capper is a photo taken by Sheppard that shows something incriminating we couldn't be bothered to remember.
NiteOwl Review: The Virginian was a popular Western which generally was as good as a mini-movie, which with it's novel hour and a half format, it was. However, there were a number of episodes which clearly strained to fill the time. This was one of them. For Virginian fans it generally wasn't a good sign when so few of the regular cast made an appearance. Of course, by this season the familiar Virginian cast was mostly missing - Gary Clarke as Steve, Randy Boone as Randy, Roberta Shore as Betsy, L.Q. Jones as Belden, Lee J. Cobb as Judge Garth, Clu Gulager as Emmett Ryker. And in this episode we had no Trampas (Doug McClure) or Clay Grainger (John McIntire who had replaced Charles Bickford who had replaced Lee J. Cobb and who was replaced by Stewart Granger). David Hartman had been added to the cast but didn't appear in this episode. The only reason for paying attention to this episode was to see Bill. A good reason of course, but it didn't improve the sluggishness of the episode. A must for Bill collectors but Bill is the main reason to watch it. Cast Note: Prior to his co-starring role in Laredo, Bill made several small appearances in the Virginian as Bill, a ranchhand who gave Randy Boone someone to hang out with on occasion. He also had a bigger pre-Laredo part in "A Killer in Town." James Daly was a frequent guest on series television and in some of the respected drama anthologies but he was probably best known as Chad Everett's co-star in the long-running drama Medical Center [1969-1976]. Daly won an Emmy for his supporting role in a Hallmark Hall of Fame drama in 1966. Tony-nominated actress Geraldine Brooks also appeared in many of the same drama anthologies and TV series. She played the first woman to fall victim to the Cartwright curse when she died in childbirth bearing Ben Cartwright's first son Adam in the 1959 episode of Bonanza, "Elizabeth My Love."
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