An anxious young woman named Linda Bell is in the town of Pawnee. The woman is boarding the stagecoach bound for Dodge City. Jim Buck introduces himself as the regular driver on the Pawnee to Dodge City run. The woman is shocked when she goes to board the coach and discovers Matt Dillon is already inside. It seems the Marshal has been on the trail for several days and exhausted a horse getting to Pawnee. He is taking the stage back to Dodge.
A menacing looking drunk bloke named Joe Bassett boards the same stagecoach. As they begin the trek to Dodge, Bassett begins to harass the woman. Matt, who is trying to get some sleep, tells the man to leave Linda alone, but the man continues his harassment. The Marshal tells Buck to stop the stage, and he makes Bassett ride alongside the driver.
As they resume the journey, Matt talks with the young woman and learns she is 17 years old and has run away from home. She met a man named Lou Paxon in St. Louis, and she plans to meet him in Dodge where they intend to marry.
When the stage arrives in Dodge, Linda and Paxon are reunited. Marshal Dillon introduces Chester Goode to Linda, and she introduces Matt and Chester to Paxon. Linda tells her fiancé about the incident on the stage with Bassett. Paxon's reaction when he sees Bassett is odd, and the Marshal becomes suspicious the two men are already acquainted.
Matt visits the Long Branch Saloon and sees Miss Bell working there as one of the "saloon girls." He questions Kitty Russell, who explains Paxon brought Linda to the saloon and insisted she get a job. Kitty did not want Linda to work at either the Texas Trail or the Lady Gay, where she would presumably be subjected to rougher treatment and would be away from Kitty's watchful eye, so she agreed to allow the young lady to work at the Long Branch.
(Kitty's mention of the other two saloons implies they are the only two saloons in Dodge City at the time other than the Long Branch. This is interesting because a few other saloons had been mentioned in previous episodes and would be named in later episodes. The radio show mentions even more saloons in the town. Of course, it is possible some of the businesses did not last. Viewers of the later seasons of the show will recall the Long Branch and the Bull's Head appear to be the only two saloons in town.)
Matt is faced with the challenges of trying to protect Linda Bell while also getting to the root of the mystery regarding Paxon and Bassett.
The characters Linda Bell, Lou Paxon, and Joe Bassett are played by a trio of Gunsmoke first timers. Myrna Fahey portrays Linda Bell. Although her character is supposed to be 17 years old, Fahey was 25 when this episode aired. Fahey appeared in several different television shows including Superman, Bachelor Father, Thriller, Hawaiian Eye, Surfside 6, as well as different Westerns during her career that spanned almost twenty years. She was only 40 years old when she died of cancer in 1973.
Ed Kemmer (credited as Edward Kemmer) starred as Commander Buzz Corry in the series Space Patrol in the early-to-middle 1950s. The remainder of his career consisted of guest roles in television dramas and soap operas and a few parts in low-budget sci-fi movies like 1958's The Spider. Kemmer fills the role of Lou Paxon.
Former wrester Aaron Saxon is the Joe Bassett character in this episode, and he certainly fits the role of a heavy with his bald head, bushy mustache, and steely glare. Saxon's acting career was relatively short lived. While Saxon could assuredly play the part of an intimidating brute, he wasn't the best at playing a drunk.
Robert Brubaker reprises his Jim Buck character in this episode. The character was often seen as a stagecoach driver that frequented Dodge City in the early years of Gunsmoke. Brubaker played eight different characters over the twenty year run of the series. In the later years, he played Floyd, the bartender at the Long Branch Saloon.
This highlight of this episode is James Arness's portrayal of Marshal Matt Dillon. He shows great range as he transitions from showing kindness and compassion to the young teenager to using a stern hand with a rude, belligerent drunk, to employing his best sleuthing skills as he seeks to uncover the mysterious relationship between Paxon and Bassett. This episode is a great example of Arness's growth as an actor during his time on Gunsmoke.
Other than fine performances by Arness and Fahey, there isn't that much compelling about this episode. Although the viewer is kept in the dark about the details of the mystery, the revelation is not much of a surprise.
Side note 1: For many seasons, the titles of Gunsmoke episodes were not widely publicized. It was only in later seasons the name of the episode was shown on screen at the beginning. It was not unusual for the writer of these earlier episodes - usually John Meston - to employ some relatively clever wordplay when naming the story. In this case, the name "Innocent Broad," which refers, of course, to the Linda Bell character, is a play on Mark Twain's famous travel book The Innocents Abroad.
Side note 2: This episode does not begin with the usual scene from the thirty-minute episodes where Matt Dillon walks around Boot Hill with voice-over commentary related to his job as U. S. Marshal.
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