Bonanza (TV Series) The Genius (1966) User Reviews

Poet lost his muse

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 28 November 2015]

Bonanza has seen many real historical characters portrayed on the show from Charles Dickens to Mark Twain. In this episode Lonny Chapman plays a noted poet who has lost his muse and taken to drink. Dan Blocker takes it upon himself to try and rehabilitate him. Of course he doesn't know who Chapman is at first and Chapman proves to be a challenge.

What's noted about this Bonanza episode is the fact that Chapman gives one of the best performances of an alcoholic this side of Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend. Matching him is Jorja Curtright who plays his ever patient wife who's come from San Francisco to Virginia City to fetch him home.

Blocker and Chapman work well together. There scenes are the highlight of this story.

Not that good--- sorry to the wrongly favorable posters

[gregkent-67629 · 3/10 · 21 January 2021]

A man who many viewers will wrongly think is famed actor Edmond O'Brien is drunk, drunk, drunk in this ep. It is obnoxious after a short time to watch him constantly be such a sloppy type. The woman who plays his wife does not have a big part and she surprisingly does not make that pleasant viewing for a woman ( only four times as good looking as a man could ever be is she) and yet she is in the opening credits.

The Drunkard

[deforest-1 · 10/10 · 26 September 2013]

This episode features Lonny Chapman putting in a good performance as a burnt-out "genius" poet with a triple-barrelled name -- one of the most gifted of America's young poets according to Ben -- thought to be dead, who turns up in Virginia City reciting poetry hour after hour in the saloon for drinkin' money, and he downs one quadruple whiskey after the other to little or no visible effect. It turns out he's running away from himself, afraid to live up to his own reputation. His wife, who still loves him, has tracked him from city to city, just arrived from San Francisco. Hoss, who has taken the drunken sot under his wing, and Ben, try to fix what ails him by settin' him to some chores on the Ponderosa. How will it turn out for the jaded couple finally reunited?