Penny is reluctant to be part of the plan, but Curry insists. Heyes escorts her to where “Grandma” waits. When Penny declares “her” clean, the sheriff begins to twist the dial on the safe to get the keys. Heyes moves too soon and snatches the gun from under “Grandma’s” skirts. With his hands in the air, the gun pointed at him, the sheriff declares he’s forgotten the rest of the combination. Heyes must attempt to open the safe himself, all the while holding a gun on the lawmen.
Meanwhile, Curry insists that the liveryman man keep the stables open a few minutes past his usual 10 p.m. closing time. The man protests loudly until Curry ties him up and covers his head with a bucket.
Heyes’s nimble fingers find the combination and he hustles the lawmen into “the Kid’s” cell and “the Kid” out. Heyes, Penny, “the Kid,” and “Grandma” meet Curry in the stable where Silky changes into his own clothes and makes a hasty exit. The other four ride hell-bent for leather away from Red Rock, pursued by a posse.
Turning their horses loose, they hope the posse will follow the riderless animals in the dark. Heyes and Curry lead Penny and “the Kid” to an abandoned mine shaft. Realizing they’ve been duped by the hardened criminals, the sheriff tips his hat to the law in Wyoming, no longer critical of their inability to bring in Heyes and Curry.
Day dawns but candles light the mineshaft. Penny has whipped up a good meal but can’t open the can of peaches for dessert. Heyes takes it from her and attempts to pry it open. “The Kid” apologizes for getting Penny into trouble and remains convinced they’ll be caught. Heyes reminds him they’re operating on a Hannibal Heyes Plan — one sure to work. First of all, there can’t be anyone within sixty miles of the mine shaft and anyway, they’ll be leaving after dark. “The Kid” guesses the plan is foolproof after all. Frustrated at his fruitless attempts to open the can, Heyes whacks it with a hatchet.
Two children are playing at a nearby waterfall and at the sound of the banging, they run to tell their father and older brother who are chopping wood. While the father takes the kids and hightails it back to town, the older son stands guard at the mine entrance. The news rouses the sheriff and another posse.
That night, when Curry is on guard, he hears a strange sound. An owl? If it is, “he’s drivin’ a wagon,” he tells Heyes.
The sheriff positions his men in strategic places and makes sure they have kerosene-soaked torches. They’ve also poured the fuel into the pond outside the mine shaft. Heyes’s plan calls for him and Curry to run for the passing freight train when it stops for water, leading the posse away from the mine. “The Kid” and Penny are then to make their own escape. The sheriff also hears the train whistle and suspects what’s about to happen. Heyes and Curry run out but stop short as the sheriff gives the order and the pond erupts into flame. From every angle, rifles are pointed at them.
Escorted back to jail, they are surprised to see Silky in an adjoining cell. Shortly, all five appear before the judge, who tells them Jack Brown was captured and confessed to the crime. “The Kid,” however, will still be sent back to Wyoming to serve out a twenty-year sentence. At that, “Kid” finally admits he is not Kid Curry of Wyoming, but Fred Philpotts of Minneapolis. The rest admit they did what they did because they knew he was innocent. Lucky for them, the judge favors justice over the law and simply orders them out of his court and out of Red Rock.
At the train station, Heyes and Curry run into Wheat and Kyle who are back in town after turning in their prisoner, Jack Brown. He had the misfortune of sleeping in the same barn they did in Hillsdale. Silky approaches with bags in hand, very angry at what the boys put him through. They’re confused by his reaction, but Curry has learned a lesson from the whole affair: “Never turn a good friend into a lady.” Or, Heyes counters, “never turn a lady into a good friend.”
CAST
WALTER BRENNAN — SILKY O’SULLIVAN
ROBERT MORSE — FRED PHILPOTTS
BELINDA MONTGOMERY — PENELOPE ROACH
SLIM PICKENS — SHERIFF WHITAKER
EARL HOLLIMAN — WHEAT CARLSON
MICKEY SHAUGHNESSY — DEPUTY HOLLIS
DENNIS FIMPLE — KYLE MURTRY
HENRY JONES — JUDGE CARTER
PAUL FIX — TOM HANSEN
FRANK MAXWELL — DEFENSE ATTORNEY
AMZIE STRICKLAND — MISS BUCKLEY
READ MORGAN — LOBO
BOOTH COLMAN — TELEGRAPHER
VAUGHN TAYLOR — DEPUTY WILLIS
C. ELLIOTT MONTGOMERY — DEPUTY COLLIE
SID HAIG — GRIFFIN
Roy Huggins was once asked what he would like his epitaph to say. He replied with a wish that he would be known as someone who consistently delivered a very high level of storytelling. [1] This episode is one example of his dedication to his art. Glen Larson and Huggins worked closely on the script to get it to the final aired version. The story was Huggins’s, but Larson wrote some very funny lines which remained throughout multiple revisions. However, some story elements changed vastly from initial line to final cut.
In early drafts, instead of Heyes learning the news from Silky that Curry is in jail, the boys both learn about the young man calling himself Kid Curry from a newspaper headline. This approach of learning they’re in trouble from a news story would also be used in “Everything Else You Can Steal” and “A Fistful of Diamonds.” This time Curry is delighted he will be off the hook. Huggins loved the idea of Kid Curry sitting around crowing about his luck, supplying a reason for conflict between the characters. Heyes gets to remind Curry, whom he calls a “stupid sonofabitch” in the early stages of the script, that he’ll be in trouble with the governor if it’s later discovered the wrong man was hanged in his name. Heyes reasons it’s not as if the governor was making them wait for the amnesty because he was mean but because he can only do what he can get away with politically. Huggins also loved Larson’s line about Wheat’s forgetting the glamour of being an outlaw. However, Kyle’s remark about them not having been in a streak of glamour for a few days was cut so as not to carry the joke too far.
Fred Philpotts, whose name was to be learned from the outset, is a “Walter Mitty” type. Script notes reiterate that it is terribly important for the judge to clarify that he doesn’t care what the young man’s name is — Kid Curry or Fred Philpotts — because he’s going to be punished for murder, regardless of who he is. Later, however, the writers decided that that approach wasn’t logical and wouldn’t work. And it wasn’t until the fourth rewrite they realized Fred could not reveal his true identity in the beginning of the story. That Fred/“Kid” is perfectly willing to die as one of the biggest outlaws in the West is not an issue. He will be charged with the rancher’s murder, but who he is must remain suspenseful.
When “the Kid” admits on the gallows that Ted Brown was really Hannibal Heyes, it becomes an issue for the real Heyes, so he concocts the grandmother story. In the initial drafts, Heyes and Curry, not Wheat and Kyle, ride into Hillsdale to send the telegram asking Silky to send “Grandma” Curry to Red Rock. A funny scene was cut in which the boys approach other little old ladies getting off the train because they don’t know exactly who will arrive as Grandma. Emma Holstem, the lady who wouldn’t play a grandmother though she’s eighty-eight years old, was a woman Soapy used to work with in his con days.
In Huggins’s original story, a deputy accompanies Curry to the saloon to find a girl to search “Grandma.” When they get to an alley, Curry clobbers the deputy, pushes him into the alley and hits him again. Huggins later threw out this idea but “he doesn’t remember why. Something was telling him there was something wrong with it.” [2] Penny agrees to be the one to check “Grandma” for weapons because she likes Fred. She is then free to come with them or Curry will give her a couple hundred dollars to settle down somewhere else. But when the time comes, Penny’s conscience bothers her and she can’t do it, until Curry convinces her there is no other way.
As Heyes and “Grandma” walk to “the Kid’s” cell, Curry
pulls a gun on the deputies, gags them and ties them up. Heyes and Curry break Fred out and head for the livery stable. The plan is that they will stay in the mine shaft for four or five days (enough time for Fred and Penny to fall in love) then they’ll walk ten miles to where the train stops for water and hop a boxcar. They arrive at the abandoned mine, let their horses go, then have to make their way to a ranch to steal more horses on the day they plan to escape. They’re caught by the ranch owner and taken back to town. This plan was nonsensical and Huggins realized it would definitely not be up to Heyes’s standards. He asked Larson, “Is it stupid that they don’t have a better plan than that?” [3] Larson agreed and abandoned it, as well as the courtroom scene in which the judge, who has just locked up Ted Brown, proclaims Fred a pathological liar. However, Ted Brown’s statement relieving Fred of guilt was kept.
In the first week of June, the writers were on the third rewrite attempting to make the above scenes fit. Details of names were tweaked for improvement as well. Red Rock, Oregon, where the murder occurred and the trial held, was changed to Red Rock, Montana; the prosecutor’s first name, Fred, was changed to avoid having two Freds in the script; and Ted Brown metamorphosed into Jack Brown. Sam Jaffe, who had played Soapy Saunders — Heyes and Curry’s gentleman conman friend — was filming Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks and was unavailable to reprise his role, so the character was changed to Silky O’Sullivan when veteran actor Walter Brennan was hired. During his scenes as Grandma Curry, Brennan was weighed down with twenty pounds of costume consisting of shawl, veil and long dress. The episode was filmed in 100-degree weather, so Brennan, who suffered from emphysema, occasionally had to retreat to his dressing room for oxygen to aid his breathing. [4]
Despite Huggins’s misgivings about Larson as a writer, in several instances, script notes indicate that when Larson suggested a phrase or a raison d’etre, Huggins saw the wisdom and went along. For instance, it was Larson’s idea for Heyes to remind Curry that, if Fred hangs, Curry will have to live in South America because if anyone ever saw him after he was supposed to be dead, it wouldn’t bode well for him. Huggins also liked Larson’s line when the judge tells them to get out of town, “whoever you are.”
One line that Huggins did not approve of occurred in an early rewrite. Curry is championing his idea that living in South America wouldn’t be too bad. No one would be looking for him there after had been hanged and buried. Heyes scorns him with “South America?! You wouldn’t last two weeks down there. You can’t even walk past a tamale stand without turning red.” Wheat was to chime in, “Better to be red than dead” — a reference, perhaps, to Huggins’s interest in the Communist party.
This ninety-minute episode opened the second season with a flourish. All the premises of the pilot were in evidence. Curry, already tired of chasing the elusive amnesty, was brought back to reality by Heyes’s silver tongue. Devil’s Hole Gang members Wheat and Kyle were on hand to support their former partners in crime. Heyes’s plan saves the day, sort of, and by the end, both pretty good bad men are back on track. Thursday nights would find Heyes and Curry involved in more adventures and this was a rousing start to the season, further cementing Huggins’s claim to fame as a master storyteller.
How To Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson
“You’re no fun at all, Harry.”
Hannibal Heyes
STORY: JOHN THOMAS JAMES
TELEPLAY: DAVID MOESSINGER
DIRECTOR: ALEXANDER SINGER
SHOOTING DATES: JULY 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 1971
ORIGINAL US AIR DATE: SEPTEMBER 23, 1971
ORIGINAL UK AIR DATE: NOVEMBER 29, 1971
Harry Wagoner pretends to fill out a deposit slip as he cases the First National Bank. His face falls when he discovers the bank’s safe is a Pierce & Hamilton 1878. To add to Harry’s woe, Deputy Lee Harper enters the bank, making his rounds. With one last disgusted look at the safe, Harry leaves, his plans spoiled. Outside, though, the answer to his problem rides up the street — Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry.
Curry relaxes on the hotel porch while Heyes scopes out the town. Two undertaking parlors, a big bank with solid brick walls, five saloons full of poker players who don’t know the odds against helping two pair and a sheriff who’s a stranger to them along with a fat, lazy deputy make this a town they can really enjoy.
On the other side of the porch, Lester Wilkey harasses Janet Judson. Despite discouragement from Heyes, Curry goes to her rescue and a fight ensues. Lester, ready to shoot it out, has second thoughts when Heyes warns him with a shake of his head.
In the hotel restaurant, Janet explains she and her sister Lorraine have been fending off Lester’s attempts to buy their ranch. With Lorraine’s husband dead, they need help keeping Lester away until they can sell to a legitimate buyer. She offers Heyes and Curry foreman’s wages if they’ll stay and act as a deterrent. Janet tempts them further with the promise of good cooking and good company. Curry is willing to take the job right then, but Heyes wants to talk it over. He pulls Curry aside and says he’ll take Janet and Curry can have the as-yet-unseen sister. Curry agrees easily. He can see the beautiful Lorraine over Heyes’s shoulder as she joins Janet at the table.
On the way out to the ranch, Janet and Lorraine are overcome by the heat and stop for a swim. Heyes and Curry sit on the bank, watching with great enjoyment as the ladies cavort in their skimpy underclothes until a voice behind them demands they raise their hands. Heyes and Curry recognize the voice, but can’t quite put a name to it. They turn around and see Harry Wagoner.
The group resumes their journey as Harry relates his plans to the now restrained outlaws. Heyes will rob the First National Bank with Harry. Curry will stay with Janet and Lorraine. When the job is over, they’ll release Curry, but if Heyes fails, they’ll kill him. Heyes points out that a Pierce & Hamilton ’78 is the latest technology and he can’t open it. Harry just smiles. He knows they robbed the Merchants Bank in Denver a year and a half earlier, and it had a brand new P & H ’78.
Heyes and Harry return to town while Lorraine and Janet continue on to their hiding place with Curry.
Heyes tries beating knowledge of Curry’s whereabouts out of Harry and when that doesn’t work, throws him into a pond and holds his head under water. Sputtering, Harry maintains he doesn’t know where the women are taking Curry. That was part of the plan. No matter what Heyes does to him, Harry can’t tell him anything. Heyes is forced to believe him.
The women and Curry arrive at the hideout. It’s a ramshackle cabin with a grave to one side. “That your last victim?” Curry asks.
When Heyes and Harry settle in at the hotel, Heyes makes a list of everything they’ll need for the job.
In the cabin, Curry needles Janet. He’s sure Harry knows where they are, but Lorraine contradicts him. Then he asks if Harry doesn’t know where they are, how is he going to find them after the job is done? Janet tells him not to worry about that. Curry tries once more, asking Lorraine to hit him over the head if he ever again goes to the aid of a woman in trouble. Janet snaps back that he wanted easy money and lonely women. He took her bait like a hungry coyote. With a sheepish grin, Curry acknowledges it’s true.
That night, Heyes tiptoes to the door. Harry sits up in bed, gun drawn. Heyes explains he was just going to pipe the bank.
The next morning, Janet leaves. Curry, hands tied behind him, paces around the room while Lorraine keeps her shotgun trained on him and sweetly explains that the broken down cabin once belonged to her and her husband, before she killed him. She shot him as he put on his boots one day and she’ll do the same to Curry if he does one thing out of the ordinary.
Harry has gone shopping and returns with quick-drying putty, safety fuse, an alarm clock and a canvas cabin bag. Heyes adds a bar spreader to Harry’s list, but without a Bryant pump, the job’s off.
That night, Harry creeps out of the hotel room when he thinks Heyes is asleep, but Heyes follows him. Heyes sees Janet waiting by the side of the r
oad and takes off his boots in order to sneak up on her, but before he can get very close, Harry starts shooting at him. Janet quickly takes off. Heyes surrenders before Harry hits him by mistake.
In the morning, Heyes does a bit of sewing, modifying the canvas cabin bag. Harry is annoyed to find the door locked when he returns from his latest shopping expedition, but Heyes soothes him, saying it’s a necessary precaution now that they’ve started gathering equipment. This time Harry has brought four ounces of nitro. Heyes also needs another alarm clock; he broke the one he had when he knocked it off the table.
While Janet is gone, Lorraine is feeding Curry beans. He wants to know how she came to be mixed up with Harry Wagoner. Lorraine spins another story for him. She didn’t kill her husband; the man she ran off with did. That wasn’t Harry, she clarifies; Harry’s in love with Janet. Lorraine dishes up a second helping of beans as she continues her tale. She worked in a dance hall before she met Harry and the bank robbery was her idea. Lorraine is distracted and no longer holding the shotgun, so Curry takes a chance. He knocks her to the floor and throws himself on top of her, threatening to beat her with his head unless she unties him. Janet arrives and stymies Curry’s opportunity for escape.
Heyes enters the hotel room and is met with a beaming Harry proudly showing off the new alarm clock, the bar spreader and, wrapped with a red ribbon, the indispensable Bryant pump. They’ll do the job tonight.
Heyes and Harry use the bar spreader to get into the bank through one of the barred windows. The next step is to putty around the edges of the safe, making it airtight. Harry sets the alarm clock for forty minutes, after which the putty will be set and they can go to step two.
Back at the cabin, Curry, now gagged and tied, listens as Lorraine revises her story yet again. She didn’t work in a dance hall, but in a saloon. Janet isn’t her sister; she was her boss.
Alias Smith & Jones: The Story of Two Pretty Good Bad Men Page 19