Back in the old days, when it was still allowed, kids used to imitate foreign accents and pretend to be TV characters. The rhyming Italian accent was always fun, and nobody did it worse than John Dehner as Scanzano.
John Dehner is Scanzano, the Italian immigrant who happens upon a wanted killer and shoots him. He gives the $5000.00 reward to a local church charity, which seems insane, considering that $5000.00 in 1870 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $113,082.44 today. His Italian family consists of Anglo kids and a German wife (played by Ilka Windish).
Like often happens, Gunsmoke sets out to make a point about sensitivity to other cultures and cannot even cast one Italian character with a real Italian. Considering that they often used Italian actor Vito Scotti to play Indians and Mexicans, it would have been nice to see Scotti playing an Italian.
John Dehner rhymes everything he says, he has a really cheap fake mustache that is totally flat, like a sticker, and every time he talks about his family, the Chef Boyardee spaghetti music comes on in the background.
The only good thing about this episode is Matt Dillon is in it, along with good villains like Lee Van Cleef, Tom Reese, Steve Ihnat, and George Keymas. These guys are all decent thugs on their own, but together they make a formidable menace.
Eventually Matt Dillon sorts them out, like they deserve. Considering all the mean things that were done to the Scanzano family, I was hoping for major bloodshed at the end.
One bright point is that the townfolks that supported the villains when they were persecuting Scanzano, eventually show him some love. One glaring question is why the minister and church that got the $5000.00 donation never stepped up to help Scanzano? Seems pretty mean-spirited that they never gave Scanzano a hand when his family needed it.
One very low point is the ridiculous gun-fight between Steve Ihnat and Scanzano. Scanzano gets shot in the shoulder and then wiggles in the dirt for about 90 seconds like he was paralyzed, as he crawls very slowly towards his gun by clawing the dirt with one hand while yelling in rhyme "pizza pizza mama mia I no a coward. Always a remember, Scanzano was a not afraided. Ravioli ravioli tortellini."