Alias Smith & Jones: The Story of Two Pretty Good Bad Men

by Sandra K. Sagala

  Curry and Annabelle find themselves at the home of John and Minerva Lambert. The couple is suspicious at first, given the lateness of the hour, but when Annabelle spins a tale about a broken down buggy, adding that she and Curry are on their honeymoon, the Lamberts welcome them. Over a bowl of hot soup, Annabelle expands her story, sharing their plan for having three children. When Curry observes that the Lamberts’ children must be all grown, John contradicts him saying they’ve been spared the heartache of having children.

  John offers to let them spend the night in the barn and, as he and Curry fetch blankets, Curry notices his saddlebag is gone. John assures him it’s safe in the hall closet and Curry apologizes for being nervous, blaming it on the honeymoon experience.

  Curry and Annabelle retire to the barn, where he makes up two comfortable beds in the hay. Annabelle shivers under her blanket until she can’t stand it anymore. She crawls over to Curry and admits she’s freezing. He invites her and her blanket to join him. She’s concerned about the proprieties and makes sure he understands it’s only the cold that has her cuddling up to him.

  Curry takes the opportunity their closeness has brought to point out that he knows Annabelle has been lying and asks what the truth is. Annabelle admits she exaggerated a bit, “for the sake of interesting conversation,” and says she’s on the way to Kingsburg to live with her father, who is not a financier, but is a gentleman. Warm at last, they fall asleep.

  Heyes is still on Curry’s trail, as are the angry men from North Rim.

  The next morning Griffin and his friends finally catch up to Curry and Annabelle as they ride double on Princess. There’s no chance of outrunning them, so Curry pulls up and faces the men. Griffin grabs the saddlebag, pulls out a packet of bills and opens it, revealing only newsprint between the real bills on top and bottom. Curry stares in disbelief. Griffin turns his attention to Annabelle’s carpetbag but finds only clothing. In a rage, he pulls his gun and only Stacey’s quick reaction in blocking his aim stops him from killing Curry. Griffin demands to know what’s happened to the money, but Curry is as ignorant as to its whereabouts as the rest of them. Stacey convinces Griffin that the surprised look on Curry’s face when the ruse was revealed proves he is telling the truth. Griffin cools down and explains that they’re not a bunch of thieves, but simply men who lost money when the bank failed and they’re just trying to recover what belongs to them.

  After Griffin and the others leave, Curry turns to Annabelle, accusing her of stealing the money. She’s deeply hurt. Faced with her tears, Curry relents, saying there’s one other possibility — the Lamberts.

  They return to the Lambert farm, where Curry explains the situation. Angry at the accusation, John Lambert grabs his rifle, determined not to let Curry search his property. Curry wrestles the gun away from him and a thorough search begins in every cupboard, every drawer, every closet. Faced with a locked door Curry insists, “Either you give me the key or I shoot the door open.” When John refuses, Curry makes good on his threat. He shoots the lock off.

  It’s a child’s bedroom. Draped in cobwebs and full of decaying toys, the room has obviously been untouched for many years. Curry, now ashamed of his aggression, quietly promises to repair the lock and make everything as it was.

  Curry, Annabelle and the Lamberts continue the search in the barn. There they run into Griffin and his men, who figured they would return to the Lambert farm and have been waiting for them. This is the last straw for John, and he charges at Griffin in agonized rage. Curry takes on Stacey, while Annabelle grabs a shovel and prepares to bring it down on the nearest head. Into this melee enters Heyes, gun at the ready. Griffin and his men are defeated.

  The train pulls into Kingsburg. Heyes, Curry and Annabelle alight and come face to face with Greer. Curry says they haven’t got the money, something he’s sure doesn’t surprise the lawyer. Greer cheerfully explains he used them as a decoy, switching the saddlebag while they signed the receipt, and brought the money to Kingsburg himself. Curry starts to take a swing at Greer, but Heyes stops him. Heyes explains they’d have been in big trouble if they’d lost the money, but Greer just shrugs off their concern. “All’s well that ends well,” he says with a big smile. With a smile of his own, Heyes slugs him. Heyes and Curry share a moment of satisfaction before Annabelle extracts her own revenge on Curry with a sudden slap across his face. Under threat of another slap, Curry apologizes for thinking Annabelle was a thief.

  At the hotel, Annabelle proudly asks after her father, DeCourcey Considine. The desk clerk is baffled for a moment, until he realizes she means Deke Considine. He tells her she’ll find him in the saloon. If he’s got money he plays poker for himself, and if he doesn’t, he deals for the house. Right now he’s dealing for the house. Annabelle is shattered.

  She decides to leave Kingsburg. As she boards the train, she asks Heyes and Curry to tell her father that they’ve seen her, that she’s all grown up and very happy. Curry wonders if she wouldn’t rather tell him herself. “No,” she replies. “I’m not that grown up.” Heyes and Curry watch as the train pulls away, taking Annabelle back home.

  GUEST CAST

  ALAN HALE — ANDREW J. GREER

  HEATHER MENZIES — ANNABELLE

  JOHN LARCH — GRIFFIN

  JACK GARNER — STACEY

  CONLAN CARTER — BREEN

  MICHAEL CARR — BRIGGS

  ROYAL DANO — JOHN LAMBERT

  CLAUDIA BRYAR — MINERVA LAMBERT

  LIAM DUNN — TELEGRAPHER

  SANDY WARD — BRAKEMAN

  RAYMOND GUTH — FARMER

  NORMAN LEAVITT — WAGON DRIVER

  RAY BALLARD — HOTEL CLERK

  This is the first of five episodes which separate Heyes and Curry for most of the story. The time crunch had already hit the production staff, so they considered any tactic which could speed things up. Short on scripts, in sheer desperation they turned to a 1963 episode of The Virginian which originally aired during Huggins’s tenure as executive producer on that show. Because it was a Universal property, it was easy enough to dig out the script and go from there. Roy Huggins set about cutting the script, bringing it down from a ninety-minute show to sixty minutes and adapting it to fit Alias Smith and Jones. He tightened a story that dragged in spots, but also eliminated some exposition which should have been left in in the interests of clarity.

  Heyes and Curry are given the task of transporting $50,000 from North Rim to Kingsburg for a mysterious Colonel Harper, who will put in a good word with the governor for them in return. Greer acts so furtively that the first impression is he’s stolen the money. However, a reading of the source material, “Run Away Home,” tells us that Greer (Moody in the original) is worried because his withdrawal of Colonel Harper’s (Judge Garth’s) $50,000 was the last straw for the failing bank. Griffin (Swenson) lost his life savings because of the large withdrawal and he’s not about to take it lightly. This gives everyone a stronger motivation for their actions and is something that should have been made more clear in this episode.

  While the lack of exposition makes the audience work harder to understand the story, Huggins also strengthened many areas, notably the poignant scene revealing the Lamberts’ grief for their dead daughter. In a story conference on December 3, 1970, Huggins expressed concern about the Lamberts’ secret. “The mystery about the family does not really pay off in the present script. We ought to be able to do better.” [12] In The Virginian script, the Lamberts (Lewises), have a trunk full of their daughter’s belongings, a trunk which hasn’t been opened since the day they buried her. Huggins improved upon this, turning the trunk into a room and having Curry ruthlessly blow off the lock on the door, making this violation of their grief even more shocking.

  Because this episode was adapted from a script from another show, it is not one of the best for showing off Heyes and Curry. However, some moments add to our increasing knowledge of the boys. Curry’s appetite, already mentioned in “Exit from Wickenburg,” is again shown
to be a force greater than his common sense, leading him to leave the all-important saddlebag with Annabelle while he goes off for food. A dangerous temper, hinted at in the pilot, comes out here both in the scene where he forces his way into the Lamberts’ locked bedroom and at the end where Heyes stops him from punching Greer, urging him to “cool down.” In the end, though, this is a story not about two reformed outlaws, but about a young girl gaining new maturity.

  Annabelle is seeking to make her fantasies real. Her desire to be part of Society, to have a father who is “a gentleman, an authentic aristocrat, a man of leisure and good manners and style” has led her to hop a freight train and flee from marriage to a wheat farmer. She gains the authentic experience she was after, but discovers that authentic experience also includes reality, the reality that her father is a gambler, not a gentleman. Suddenly, going home and facing marriage to a farmer doesn’t seem so bad. Annabelle has grown up.

  The Great Shell Game

  “I’m not much of a talker. More of a man for action than words.”

  Kid Curry

  STORY: JOHN THOMAS JAMES

  TELEPLAY: GLEN A. LARSON

  DIRECTOR: RICHARD BENEDICT

  SHOOTING DATES: JANUARY 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 1971

  ORIGINAL US AIR DATE: FEBRUARY 18, 1971

  ORIGINAL UK AIR DATE: JUNE 21, 1971

  At the Jennings County Fair, Hannibal Heyes inconspicuously removes the cotter pin from a wheel on Grace Turner’s parked carriage. When the wheel falls off on the road to Mineral Springs as expected, Heyes coincidentally happens by. They introduce themselves and, at her request, he fixes the wheel.

  That evening at dinner, Grace tells Heyes, whom she knows as Mr. Smith, that she is a well-invested widow from Philadelphia traveling on holiday. She discovers a wallet under their table containing a substantial amount of money and a card with strange markings on it that identify it as belonging to Dr. Michael Sylvester of the Gentlemen’s Jockey Club. When they return the wallet to him, Sylvester, touched by their honesty, rewards them by inviting them to lunch at his club.

  Seeing Grace to her room, Heyes discloses that he is owner of the Nevada Queen, a silver mine. Grace is suitably impressed and agrees to lunch with him and the doctor. Heyes returns to Sylvester’s room and informs him that the date is set. Grace doesn’t know that Dr. Sylvester is really “Soapy” Saunders, a former con man and good friend to Heyes.

  During lunch, Dr. Sylvester places a bet for them on Carriepoise who wins the third race at Saratoga. Later that evening, Heyes and Grace help the doctor, now quite intoxicated, to his room. At her questioning, Dr. Sylvester informs her he had been personal physician to a prominent man in the racing world. The man shared the knowledge that the results of some races are known beforehand and the system allows the doctor to live comfortably in retirement. Grace is excited at the prospect of sharing in his easy winnings.

  The next time the couple attends the club, Chuck Morgan, who had previously tried to ingratiate himself with Grace at the fair, introduces himself but she is not interested. When Heyes walks by, Morgan recognizes him and calls him by name. Heyes ignores the salutation and the club manager rebukes Morgan for his indiscretion.

  Because of the doctor’s system, Grace wins but while walking back to her hotel room, she confesses to Heyes that she is not as wealthy as she had led him to believe. She is intrigued by the doctor’s system and would like to continue winning. To stop the talk, Heyes kisses her.

  Later, Heyes stops by Soapy’s room. Soapy wants to wrap up the scheme and return to San Francisco, but is amenable to Heyes’s wishes. Watching his dejected friend, Soapy suspects something is wrong. Has he fallen in love with Grace? Should they carry on with the scam? Heyes, though worried that Grace may take the money they’ve invested in her so far and run, decides to give her “the full treatment.”

  While dining on their final evening together, Soapy toasts their friendship. Chuck Morgan approaches their table and Heyes has no choice but to introduce him to Grace. As Morgan leads her to the dance floor, Heyes tells Soapy that Morgan was with Al Plummer when Heyes first started. Soapy knows him as an outside man for the club.

  After dinner, Heyes escorts Grace back to her room and she worries that the doctor may be getting ready to clean out the Jockey Club and leave town. She wants another tip from his code book. As she unlocks her door, she spots a note on the floor. Dr. Sylvester has invited them to his room to tell them he has urgent business in San Francisco, but before he goes, will share a final wager. The odds may be as strong as five to one.

  Because this will be their final opportunity to bet, Heyes wonders aloud about him and Grace each coming up with $12,500. She’s leery, wanting to make a killing, “but I want to kill them, not me.” Nevertheless, the doctor thinks that, on his say so, the club manager would take each of their personal checks for $10,000 plus $2,500 in cash. They agree to meet the next day.

  Just before noon, the actors at the Jockey Club wait for Heyes and Grace to arrive. At the ringing of the bell over the door, they take their places and act the part of bettors. The club steward, Dr. Sylvester says, will accept their checks. They are to bet on the Isle of Erin in the third race; then he says goodbye.

  The horse wins as expected and the steward counts out an even $125,000 but they cannot collect until their out-of-town checks clear. Because that could take a week, Heyes suggests they buy back their checks in cash and the manager okays the deal. Chuck Morgan watches closely as Heyes and Grace leave the club to raise $10,000 each.

  Heyes discovers Morgan waiting in his hotel room, holding a gun on him and demanding to know how he could pull a sting on a lovely lady like Grace. The first rule of the Big Store, he says, is to find someone crooked who won’t head off to the police when they’re taken. He thinks Grace is fine and decent. Heyes proposes to set him straight.

  He relates the story of Kid Curry who was hired to deliver a legal document to an address in Hidalgo, Mexico. After six days’ ride, Curry arrives to discover that the building he is looking for doesn’t exist. He encounters Grace who informs him that his horse has just been stolen but when he turns back to question her further, she is gone. Down on his luck with no food or money, he finds her in the cantina and asks her what she had seen of the horse thieves. “They were Mexican.”

  She offers to share her meal and, in return, asks if he would act as a bodyguard for her as she’s carrying $20,000 worth of diamonds back to the States.

  On the road, the stagecoach breaks down and Grace takes advantage of the unscheduled stop to cool off in a nearby stream. Climbing out of the water, she picks up her dress and finds a rattlesnake poised to strike. At her cry, Curry approaches carefully and kills it with one shot. Grace is weak with relief and embraces Curry, a caress he tenderly returns.

  On the last evening before they reach Laredo, Curry admits he’ll be glad to get rid of the bag of diamonds and Grace too because she has too many secrets. She hasn’t asked about his secrets because she doesn’t want to care about him any more than she already does.

  As they pull into town and exit the stage, Marshall Slater approaches and arrests the Kid. Grace had sent him a telegram about Curry whom she recognized the first time she saw him. She was once a passenger on a train he’d stopped and now was set to collect the reward. Unfortunately, meantime, she’s fallen in love with him.

  Curry is sitting in jail when Grace passes him a note through the window advising him to seek cover. As soon as he squeezes under the cot, dynamite blows a hole in the cell wall and he escapes.

  Heyes concludes his story to Morgan with the statement that everyone thinks Curry and Grace were in on the scheme together to collect the $10,000 reward on him. Now Heyes and Curry must return the money to get back in the governor’s good graces for amnesty, hence $10,000 is the amount they must take Grace for.

  At the Jockey Club, Heyes and Grace each present $10,000 cash and their checks are returned. As soon as the steward gets back from the bank
, he’ll hand over their winnings. Instructing her to order coffee while waiting, Heyes steps out. Grace looks up and finds Kid Curry standing in the corner, smiling at her. She rushes out to the teller’s window, but the place is deserted. Realizing she’s been duped, she says, “You must have needed it pretty bad.” Curry admits they did and discloses that Mr. Smith fell as madly in love with her as he did.

  GUEST CAST

  DIANA MULDAUR — GRACE TURNER

  PETER BRECK — CHUCK MORGAN

  SAM JAFFE — DR. MICHAEL SYLVESTER/JONATHON J. “SOAPY” SAUNDERS

  VINCENT BECK — CLUB STEWARD

  KEN MAYER — MARSHALL SLATER

  JIM MALANDA — HOTEL CLERK

  PAUL MICALE — MAN

  The production ploy of separating Ben Murphy and Peter Duel to film two episodes simultaneously was unfortunate because a primary Alias Smith and Jones quality was the chemistry between the characters. Even when the technique was employed, the two usually ended up with at least a few scenes together; there are none in “The Great Shell Game.”

  The connecting character between their stories is, of course, Grace Turner. Greed corrupted her morals to the point where she was willing to trade Kid Curry for the reward on him. Perhaps she told herself she was acting as a responsible citizen by turning in a notorious outlaw, but that was before she fell in love with him. She compromised her good citizenship by helping him escape, leaving Heyes and Curry no out except to get the reward money back through the elaborate scam.

  If Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry learned the concept of amnesty from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, then the favor was returned when Paul Newman and Robert Redford reprised their partnership as Henry Gondorf and Johnny Hooker and borrowed the Big Store scam, pulling it off in the 1973 film The Sting. Bogus bookie joints featured prominently, both in this episode and in the film, and were aimed not only at duping unsuspecting tourists, but could be a lucrative, if dangerous, method of conning a mark. The heyday of the American confidence man was between 1914 and 1923. Heyes, as usual, was ahead of his time, but exuded all of the traits usually associated with a con man: “charming good looks, smooth tongue, falsified and inconsistent background…and tailored clothes.” [13]