Ellie Merchant, the wife of farmer Joe Merchant, is having a passionate affair with outlaw Pike Beechum. Beechum intends to remove Joe and any other obstacle between him and Ellie.Ellie Merchant, the wife of farmer Joe Merchant, is having a passionate affair with outlaw Pike Beechum. Beechum intends to remove Joe and any other obstacle between him and Ellie.Ellie Merchant, the wife of farmer Joe Merchant, is having a passionate affair with outlaw Pike Beechum. Beechum intends to remove Joe and any other obstacle between him and Ellie.
- Director
- Writers
- John Mantley
- Norman MacDonnell(uncredited)
- John Meston(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- GoofsAfter Matt locks Pike in the cell (Joe is still in the other cell), he hangs the key ring on a hook in the office area, then he leaves the building, with no one there to keep an eye on the prisoners. In this situation, anyone could come in, unlock the cells and free the prisoners.
- Quotes
Festus: [looking at wanted poster] What does it say our old friends did?
Matt Dillon: Robbery and murder.
Festus: There you go Matthew. It's men like him that give jails a bad name.
Featured review
Illicit Affair spells DOOM from the very beginning....
Another solid episode from Gunsmoke's "middle period". Good script with typical Gunsmoke-style doom and violence hanging over everything..especially with an out-in-the-open illicit affair between lovely, winsome Mariette Hartley and caustic, incisive, sardonic J. D. Cannon, the sort of role he played so well. But you just KNOW somebody is really going to "get it" in this one and,...believe me...they do.
The "comic relief" between Kitty and Festus is fine, but I get impatient when the scenes are NOT integrated into the plot, and only seem to hold up the action, which is the case here. What should be "relief" only serves to frustrate and raise the tension level.
There's a GREAT surprise about midway through this one, as Matt tracks down J. D. and confronts him out on the prairie. But when Doc and Kitty realize that Matt is "MIA", I said out loud "Where the hell is Festus or Quint...or ANYBODY...even "1st Townsman" or "2nd Townsman".. to accompany them into dangerous territory.
Anyway, the "Day for Night" filming leading to the big shoot-out is REALLY obvious; in fact, as Matt was sneaking around the ranch, I thought "That's some really nice, warm, sun-dappled cinematography, lots of depth", etc....until I realized were supposed to believe it's NIGHT, with Mariette sitting inside with her lantern. BUt... that's the way TV production (and many low-budget films) are forced to operate.
And the violent action near the end is SO cheesy when the sound effects department uses MASSIVE, LOUD gunshot cues, which sound like they're reverberating in the Grand Canyon..when in fact they're being discharged in a very close, tight space (and Mariette Hartley's fall is really lame and unconvincing). It's just SO overdone..as is the MUSIC SCORE in this episode; it has this annoying grey-ish, dreary, thick Germanic sound that continually intrudes on the action and mood. Too bad...gone are the days in the run of Gunsmoke when great artists like Fred Steiner or Van Cleave would tailor a new score to the action..and the music problem only becomes WORSE as the series moves into the "hip" late '60's and the color era, when the series really began to lose its depth and texture, both visually and musically. And I have no idea how composer Rudy Schrager was able to compose full scores week-after-week, and what function Herschel Gilbert actually served. But it's a big step down from seasons 7-9, and I deduct a full rating-star for the annoying musical scoring in this episode.
Still, there's a lot of excellent material in "Big Man", especially considering the weekly grind that made uniformly high quality a real challenge. Impressive final shot, too. LR.
The "comic relief" between Kitty and Festus is fine, but I get impatient when the scenes are NOT integrated into the plot, and only seem to hold up the action, which is the case here. What should be "relief" only serves to frustrate and raise the tension level.
There's a GREAT surprise about midway through this one, as Matt tracks down J. D. and confronts him out on the prairie. But when Doc and Kitty realize that Matt is "MIA", I said out loud "Where the hell is Festus or Quint...or ANYBODY...even "1st Townsman" or "2nd Townsman".. to accompany them into dangerous territory.
Anyway, the "Day for Night" filming leading to the big shoot-out is REALLY obvious; in fact, as Matt was sneaking around the ranch, I thought "That's some really nice, warm, sun-dappled cinematography, lots of depth", etc....until I realized were supposed to believe it's NIGHT, with Mariette sitting inside with her lantern. BUt... that's the way TV production (and many low-budget films) are forced to operate.
And the violent action near the end is SO cheesy when the sound effects department uses MASSIVE, LOUD gunshot cues, which sound like they're reverberating in the Grand Canyon..when in fact they're being discharged in a very close, tight space (and Mariette Hartley's fall is really lame and unconvincing). It's just SO overdone..as is the MUSIC SCORE in this episode; it has this annoying grey-ish, dreary, thick Germanic sound that continually intrudes on the action and mood. Too bad...gone are the days in the run of Gunsmoke when great artists like Fred Steiner or Van Cleave would tailor a new score to the action..and the music problem only becomes WORSE as the series moves into the "hip" late '60's and the color era, when the series really began to lose its depth and texture, both visually and musically. And I have no idea how composer Rudy Schrager was able to compose full scores week-after-week, and what function Herschel Gilbert actually served. But it's a big step down from seasons 7-9, and I deduct a full rating-star for the annoying musical scoring in this episode.
Still, there's a lot of excellent material in "Big Man", especially considering the weekly grind that made uniformly high quality a real challenge. Impressive final shot, too. LR.
helpful•85
- lrrap
- May 29, 2021
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Filming locations
- Stage 3, CBS Studio Center - 4024 Radford Avenue, Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA(Dodge City Western Street)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
- 4:3
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content