Cheyenne (TV Series) Massacre at Gunsight Pass (1961) User Reviews

"I don't mind you insulting me so much, but when you talk about my horse, you're going too far!"

[faunafan · 8/10 · 13 October 2022]

There's humor in this episode, thanks to Count Nicholas Potosi, and thanks to him there's also a lot of killing. He's introduced when a fellow in the saloon takes exception to Potosi's calling cowboys "babies" compared to Cossacks and their mustangs "prairie dogs." Jack Elam had a knack for playing comical characters with a dangerous edge (as in "The Durango Brothers). This one started out amusing, but the danger came soon enough.

The Russian aristocrat is one of six passengers on a stagecoach Cheyenne Bodie takes with Johnny Eldorado, the convict he's taking back to the Army for execution. Two of the other passengers are along only to free Johnny so they can get their hands on the $10,000 he stole. When the Count callously shoots a lone Shoshone along the trail, the group take refuge in a waystation run by a drunken bigot and his abused young wife. A Shoshone man from her past shows up and adds to the drama. The most vindictive and scarred Shoshone chief ever, Powder Face, is determined that none of them will leave the waystation alive, and he comes pretty close to getting his wish.

Out of water, ammunition, and options, Cheyenne uses the Indians' own tactics against them and then wins in a hand-to-hand fight with Powder Face. But his troubles aren't over yet. Johnny's co-conspirators threaten to kill Cheyenne and the only other remaining passenger, mild-mannered spinster Eva Hopkins, but she stops them with one well-aimed shot.

At least two of the passengers learn lessons from their shared trauma. Johnny Eldorado has a change of heart and tells Cheyenne, "Mr. Bodie, you're the only honest man I've ever admired." He's not the only one whose attitude changes. Eva Hopkins started out as a rather self-righteous altruist but comes to question her lifelong quest to teach others her own values when she realizes that those values haven't really enriched her own life. In a painfully private moment, she confesses to Cheyenne, "I've never really loved anyone, or had anyone love me. Now it seems like such a terrible waste. Why, do you know, in all my life, I've never even been kissed by a man." After he gently rectifies that oversight, she says, "I'm sorry, Mr. Bodie." Why she's sorry is the only mystery in this episode.

Indians lay siege to relay station in exciting Cheyenne episode

[BrianDanaCamp · 20 January 2016]

"Massacre at Gunsight Pass" (1961), a Season Five episode of the Warner Bros. western series, "Cheyenne," is packed with drama and action as Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker) and a group of stage passengers hole up at a stage relay station after one of the passengers has shot and killed a random Shoshone, arousing the ire of angry warrior Powder Face (X Brands) and his band. With only the guns they have in their possession, half a bucket of water, and a day's supply of food, the eleven occupants of the station have to keep the Indians at bay while also engaging in considerable squabbles among themselves. Cheyenne's prisoner, Johnny Eldorado (Sherwood Price), convicted of robbery and murder, has two confederates among the passengers posing as a married couple, but their efforts to free him and get the money he's hidden are delayed by the Indian attack. The station master (Robert Foulk) is a mean, bigoted drunk who routinely smacks his beautiful young wife (Kathie Browne) around, especially after an Indian friend of hers (Paul Mantee) returns from a white man's school and comes to see her, getting trapped there with the others when the shooting starts. One of the women on the stage is a spinster who has come out west as a self-styled do-gooder to help civilize the Indians. The most colorful character in the bunch is a battle-hungry Russian count (Jack Elam), a proud Cossack, who fired the shot that killed the Indian, thinking he was a threat. He may be the best fighter in the group (after Cheyenne, of course), but he's despised for provoking the trouble and getting them all in this mess. The Indians bide their time and pick off the station occupants one at a time until Cheyenne finds a way to resolve the whole mess.

It's quite exciting and suspenseful and the characters are interesting enough to keep the talk scenes between Indian attacks from dragging the narrative down too much. I liked the way Cheyenne's relationship with his prisoner grows deeper during the siege as Johnny comes to respect him ("I like Bodie's cut") and realize that his confederates are only interested in learning the location of the stolen money. Elam, as the Russian braggart who claims to be a captain of the Czar's army, gives quite a lively performance and plays it with enough inflection and style to cover up the occasional trailing off of his Russian accent. I was especially impressed with Kathie Browne as the gorgeous young blonde who married the abusive station master as part of a deal to keep her father out of jail and is now forced to live up to her part of the bargain even though she really loves Jimmy, the college-educated Indian. Even the scenes with the spinster who, upon facing death, laments the fact that she's never been kissed, offer an unusual layer of self-reflection as the character (played by Dee Carroll) finds reserves of strength and courage she didn't know she had, playing a crucial role in the action and earning a kiss from Cheyenne in the process.

There are slight similarities between this episode and Quentin Tarantino's latest film, THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015), which also has a cabin full of stage passengers whose numbers include a bounty hunter transporting a prisoner and the prisoner's confederates hidden among the passengers. As such, it's worthy viewing for Tarantino fans eager to see THE HATEFUL EIGHT's varied antecedents, although the 1960 "Rebel" episode, "Fair Game," which I've also reviewed here, is much, much closer to Tarantino's film. In any event, Tarantino aside, fans of classic TV westerns have much to savor in this episode, which aired on the Encore Western Channel on January 19, 2016.