What I watched: The seventeenth episode of The Gene Autry Show, a kid-friendly Western starring the titular singing cowboy and his sidekick Pat Buttram. "The Breakup" was directed by George Archainbaud and written by Dwight Cummins, with guest stars Lynne Roberts, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Bannon and Billy Gray. The episode originally aired at 7:30 PM on Sunday, November 11, 1950 on CBS, and is available on Shout Factory TV.
Starring: Jim Bannon had an adventurous road to acting, being first an athlete, sportscaster, and stuntman in the late 1930s and early 1940s before eventually starring in film serials. He had even starred in his own set of Western serials, called Red Ryder. Bannon would mostly appear in supporting roles in Westerns for the rest of his career. This is actually the second straight Gene Autry episode that Bannon appears in, having played Slim in “The Breakup”, but he makes much more of an impression here.
What happened: We open with Gene having his picture taken by an old-timey camera, but can’t strike a natural pose for the lady photographer (Roberts). The woman brings him a guitar so that he can feel more comfortable and get in a number about sending roses to a woman who makes him sad. Just as soon as the picture is taken, there’s a gunfight running through town. Gene apprehends one of the guys involved and gets into a fistfight with him. There are a few open-handed slaps in there as well too, although I’m not sure if I was supposed to notice that. However, Gene’s pugilistic powers are not as strong as usual, as the bad guy holds his own before managing to get away.
A sheriff tells Gene that the bad guy is Bill Watterson (Hale), a wanted criminal (and future great cartoonist). Gene chases him down and finds a shape moving in a bale of hay. But instead of the outlaw, it’s a boy named Eddie Baker (Gray), who puts up a bit of an attitude to Gene and the hay-fever-stricken Pat. Eddie says he’s looking for his father Jim. Gene consults with the sheriff and a local journalist, and learns that Jim (Bannon) is a wanted criminal. The sheriff wants to use Eddie as bait to lure in Jim, but Gene refuses. However, the reporter agrees to print a story that will lead Jim to Gene’s ranch. What happened to ethics in cowboy journalism?
When Eddie arrives at Gene’s ranch, he sees two Native American people in the kitchen, and immediately cries for help. Gene explains that they work for him, and are a married couple named Howdo and Mary. They don’t say anything in this scene themselves except for Howdo saying “How do.” Great representation. After some time passes, Eddie wants Gene to teach him the ways of being a rancher, including how to ride a horse. Gene goes so far as to give him his own horse. Meanwhile, Jim receives the newspaper about Eddie staying at the Flying A ranch. Jim’s gang members stop him from going to the ranch, correctly identifying it as a trap. But later on it seems that he shows up anyway, and is immediately noticed by the sheriff and his men.
Gene and Pat also notice someone intruding on their property. They try to surprise him, but Pat’s sneezing ruins the plan. Instead, Gene just slugs out Jim. Having had a fistfight, they’re able to have a heart-to-heart as men. It turns out that Jim still really wants to provide for Eddie, but he got mixed up with the wrong crowd. When the sheriff arrives, Jim assumes that Gene was in on the trap and flees.
Hiding behind a rock, Jim sees Eddie wandering too close to the action and fires off a shot to scare him away. Gene and the posse ride in, and Eddie follows them. They follow Jim straight to the outlaws’ hideout. The bad guys set up an ambush to fire on the posse when they’re gathered in the yard. When the time comes, however, the gang leader shoots Jim before opening on Gene and the sheriff. Everyone eventually runs out of bullets, and Gene is finally able to finish his fistfight from earlier by knocking out Waterson.
Everyone gathers around Jim and discovers that he isn’t dead, but in fact just got plugged in the shoulder. Gene comes up with a story that Jim was working with the law all along – a “G-Man”, as Eddie perhaps anachronistically calls it. The lady photographer from the beginning shows up to take a picture of the victorious Gene singing on his horse.
What I thought: This was another episode of the show that pairs Gene Autry with a young kid, and it’s even the second one where the kid has an outlaw father, after “The Star Toter.” But whereas that episode is about the boy having to decide to break with the bad influence, in this one it’s the father who has an arc of redemption, and earns his way back to family life. It’s a decent variation on what already seems like a formula the series will go back to repeatedly.
The plot, and the nature of Jim’s redemption, are as rushed and superficial as one would probably expect from the script of a half-hour Western. But I actually found the episode strangely poignant. Maybe it’s just because it was late at night when I watched it, or maybe it was because of Jim Bannon’s raw performance, which feels genuinely emotionally vulnerable, but it’s hard not to feel his desperation when he talked with Gene. I even almost bought his teased death at the end of the episode: there’s definitely a version of this story, in a slightly older-skewing Western, where Jim dies a tragic figure, undone by his own flaws.
I was also interested in the period detail of Gene having his picture taken, and the presence of a town newspaper, complete with a girl photographer (who gets off pretty light in terms of Gene flirtation.) This kind of early journalism is itself a trope of the Western, but it does seem to exist in contrast with the frontier atmosphere that previous Gene Autry episodes have tried to evoke. The addition of stereotyped Native American servants to Gene’s home is less fun, but it at least doesn’t play a big part in the story.
Coming up next: It’s that time of the month again, as Martin and Lewis take over the the Colgate Comedy Hour.