Bonanza (TV Series) The Lady from Baltimore (1962) User Reviews

"You're not going to /burn/ that tiny thing?" /klunk/

[grizzledgeezer · 8/10 · 24 June 2013]

When the wife of a good friend shows up with her beautiful daughter in tow, Ben is happy to entertain them, not knowing that the mother plans to seduce Little Joe into marrying the daughter, so the girl can have the social standing the mother never had.

This episode is worth seeing simply for Mercedes McCambridge's nuanced performance as a manipulative, domineering woman who thinks that wealth is the only way to redeem her life's disappointments. (Her distinctive, faintly mannish voice works well with such characters.) Such good performances are rare on series TV.

The script is good, too, with some sharp dialog, such as the mother telling the daughter what she has to look forward to (and how she's obliged to obtain it), and Adam telling Melinda that ranching is built on the application of pain.

This episode isn't "great drama", but it eschews the loud, cheap theatrics that often mar "Bonanza". Even Lorne Greene uncharacteristically restrains himself.

Two thirds of this ep is excellent

[gregkent-67629 · 7/10 · 21 January 2021]

The first two thirds. Audrey Dalton is a true beauty and fabulous in her role as the Baltimore belle. She, not the other lady guest star, makes this show work. The ep is filmed with some sort of different camera or film or both than most other Bonanza eps and it makes the drama incredibly soft viewing.

8/10

[ZuniFetishWarrior · 8/10 · 17 January 2022]

This episode is awful risque for 1962. I never expected to see a beautiful young lady stepping out of a tub on Bonanza. I always like to guess which Cartwright is gonna get the girl. 9 out of 10 times it's Joe.

Mommie Dearest pimps out daughter and another Cartwright goes into heat

[glitterrose · 5/10 · 18 December 2021]

Yeah, I realize it's perhaps a crude subject header but it's basically the tl;dr version for those that want to know the gist of the episode without reading episode guides or reviews.

I feel like something has been cut out. I enjoy "Little House on the Prairie" and I know the episodes so well I can tell when something has been cut so I'm truly not sure how mother and daughter can be dressed so well if neither one of them is employed and the father is painted out as being a "failure"*.

So I can't really blame a parent for wanting something better for their kid than how they've had it. It sounds like the mother is pretty bitter about how much she had struggled and she wants her daughter to have the best and to have status. Nevermind if she's truly happy or not about being shacked up with somebody that might not make her happy. The mother's target is Joe. She explains that Hoss isn't interested in the daughter and Adam's too cunning. Even when Adam's in heat he'll probably still have some brain cells firing on all cylinders. So that leaves Joe. And of course he's in heat. There's no other way for me to describe it. My eyes practically want to roll out of my head if you barely know somebody and you're going around talking about how much you're in love and we're getting married. And of course Joe was talking like that even while the daughter's trying to kiss up to Adam and Adam wasn't having any of it.

The father shows up at the end and it's never really explained why or if he's truly a "failure". I can see being a lush if you had to be married to the piece of work in this episode. But no, Horace didn't come wobbling up to the Ponderosa and acting like he's a drink away from alcohol poisoning. The man seemed very pleasant and definitely saner than his wife who's pimping out his daughter. Anyway, perhaps the daughter should've drawn the boundary line and rode away with her father? It didn't seem like her heart was into her mom's plan and she's just going along for the sake of going along.

Strange episode. Best part is probably a scene that probably went unnoticed by a lot of people. The mom, daughter and Cartwright's are at the table and Pernell Roberts has this pained expression on his face. I literally rewound to watch the scene again because I wanted to make sure he wasn't making the face at something somebody was doing or saying at the table. I truly can't see any context in that episode for why he'd be making that face unless he thought the script was stupid and he slipped long enough to make that face. I thought it was a funny scene but I also can sympathize if he was making the face because he thought the script was garbage.

Watch if for nothing else but Mercedes Cambridge

[LukeCoolHand · 5/10 · 17 December 2021]

This episode is very interesting. Mercedes Cambridge is a scene stealer. I cannot make up my mind about Audrey Dalton who I always thought was very beautiful until I saw her an an episode of Gunsmoke as an Indian Squaw. She did not look very beautiful without her usual make-up and now I cannot get that picture out of my mind as an Indian Squaw.

Anyway, this is a very strong episode of Bonanza and is really worth a watch. Especially to see Mercedes Cambridge doing her thing.