Incident with an Executioner

This third episode of the Rawhide series is a real winner with Dan Duryea as a contract gunfighter. Duryea has a lot less dialog than normal right up to the last quarter of the story. Still that look of sheer meanness gets his point across.

The cattle drive slows down when it sees a broken down stagecoach in the middle of nowhere. Of course Eric Fleming offers the whole bunch the protection of the drive until they reach a town. At that point riding parallel to the herd is Duryea. He's got a contract out on somebody, but it's modus operandi to quietly instill fear in one and all, but especially his target who goes for a gun and always loses.

James Drury in his pre-Virginian days is also in the cast as a young tough also a fast gun. Everyone is sure he's the target but when he challenges Duryea and loses and Duryea keeps following the trail drive is when everyone really gets scared including a lot of Eric Fleming's drovers.

A couple of years later Audie Murphy did what I consider his best western with No Name On The Bullet. The whole feature film is based on the same plot premise as this episode.

Dan Duryea never disappoints, especially when he's on the screen in one of his villain parts.