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

by Sandra K. Sagala

  The Man Who Broke The Bank at Red Gap

  “There goes our amnesty! Not to mention that we’ll be hunted with a little more enthusiasm now that we’re Number One.”

  Kid Curry

  STORY: JOHN THOMAS JAMES

  TELEPLAY: BRONSON HOWITZER AND JOHN THOMAS JAMES

  DIRECTOR: RICHARD BENEDICT

  SHOOTING DATES: DECEMBER 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 1971

  ORIGINAL US AIR DATE: JANUARY 20, 1972

  ORIGINAL UK AIR DATE: APRIL 16, 1973

  As a train carries them to Black River, Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry play parlor poker with banker Chester Powers for fun, not money. Heyes inquires whether straights and flushes are allowed in the game. It once cost him $20,000 to learn they are not unless declared so at the beginning of play. Advising him not to go into the banking business, at which Heyes grins at Curry, Powers says knowledge like that can be exploited for gain; it’s a basic business principle. Winford Fletcher, a passenger in the same train car, recognizes the boys from a previous encounter and observes the conversation from behind his newspaper.

  When the train pulls into Colton, Fletcher makes his move. Holding a gun on them, he orders Heyes and Curry to get up; he’s removing them from the train. They protest his calling them by those names, saying they are often mistaken for the two miserable outlaws, but they are not Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry. Fletcher knows better.

  Banker Powers argues with Fletcher that he should let the men stay on board, but Fletcher remembers not too long ago when their swindle cost him a small fortune. Powers insists he has a cocked two-barrel .60 caliber derringer pointed at Fletcher from under the table.

  The threat convinces Fletcher to leave them be for now, but he will shoot if they try to get off before Black River. As Fletcher leaves the car, Curry congratulates Powers on his bluff — they don’t make a .60 caliber derringer. Winford Fletcher’s words had a ring of truth to them, however, and convinced Powers of their identity. Heyes, believing uncharacteristically that honesty is the best policy, wonders why a banker would help Heyes and Curry. Powers helped them out of the sticky situation because he sees a need and how they can help fill it, another basic business principle.

  Powers needs someone with imagination, courage, and a little desperation. Curry explains that they’ve mended their desperate ways. Powers offers them $500 to do a job, but won’t tell them what it is until they reach Red Gap. About seven miles outside of town, while the train is trudging up a steep grade, the boys should jump off and make their way to town. Powers will keep Fletcher busy by engaging him in conversation.

  For some unfathomable reason or maybe the $500 each, the boys agree and start the long walk to town, the train disappearing into the distance.

  Fletcher barges into the sleeping Powers’s railroad car with news that Heyes and Curry are no longer on board. He is angry, having lost $20,000 in reward money, and threatens to sue the eyes out of Powers’s head. The banker apologizes, then offers Fletcher $2,000 to settle out of court, plus a share of the reward when the posse catches them. His generous offer pleases Fletcher.

  Heyes and Curry walk on in the dark, stopping occasionally to remove stones from their boots. Seven long miles later, they gingerly pick their way into town, trying not to let their blistered feet touch the ground. The two strangers interest Sheriff McWhirter. How did they get to Red Gap? They say they had to walk when their horses were stolen. His job, the sheriff explains patiently, is to take complaints from victims of horse thieves. Heyes offers their aching feet as an excuse. They need at least four or five whiskeys first to dull the pain.

  Next day, as Curry inspects his tender feet, Heyes reports that Powers is in his office. They wonder why he’s not contacting them. Maybe he’s waiting for them to heal up.

  After a day of playing poker, Heyes and Curry return to their room and find a note from the banker. “Meet me at the granary three miles out on River Road at ten o’clock. P.S. Burn this note.” Curry is not sure he likes the sound of that.

  At 10:30, after a no-show by Powers, they are even less sure they like the sound and sight of a posse headed their way. Back in town, they learn that the Red Gap bank has been robbed. Figuring they were set up, they hop a freight train conveniently headed out of town.

  In Hillsboro, the News Courier’s headline proclaims “Curry and Heyes in Record Robbery.” According to the press, the outlaws got away with $80,000 and a half million dollars in securities and negotiable bonds — the largest robbery ever west of the Mississippi. Winford Fletcher came from Silver Springs to corroborate the bank president’s testimony about seeing them on the train.

  The news angers Heyes, so they return to Red Gap and break into Powers’s house. To their surprise, he’s waiting for them and offers them each a brandy and $10,000 for “robbing his bank.” His generous offer exemplifies another basic business principle — everybody profits. He kept $60,000; the stocks and bonds he had speculated with and lost long ago. Now, all is well, confidence in his bank is restored and his credit is good.

  Since he already knows their true identities, they tell Powers about their amnesty deal. He pooh-poohs the idea and counters with his better one that they take the money and move to South America. When Curry argues vociferously that they just want their amnesty, Heyes restrains his friend and feigns interest in Powers’s plan. He stuffs the bundles of money under his arm and they set off for the train. On board, Heyes schemes.

  In a broken down shack off a deserted street populated only by tumbleweeds, Heyes and Curry persuade two members of the Devil’s Hole Gang who faintly resemble them to impersonate them. The men will need to create a commotion in Harristown on the night of the tenth making sure they identify themselves as Heyes and Curry. Kyle will go along.

  Meanwhile, Heyes and Curry visit Fletcher and offer him the $20,000 that Powers gave them, the exact amount Powers stopped him from collecting on them. They ask him to return to Red Gap and testify that Powers robbed his own bank, but Fletcher is fearful of the powerful banker and refuses. The boys must resort to Plan B.

  In the wee hours, they climb through a window into the bank. Curry hopes Kyle and the others are hurrahing Harristown as planned but, doubting Kyle can even read a calendar, Curry is worried. Heyes greets his old nemesis, a Pierce & Hamilton ’78. Working quietly and carefully, they prepare the safe for a nitro treatment.

  Some time later, they return to Fletcher’s office, this time emptying their satchel onto his desk. Out drop bundles of the bank’s money. With Fletcher’s help, they hope to prove that Powers robbed his bank a second time. This time Heyes and Curry couldn’t have done it because “they” were three hundred miles north in Harristown. Once more they offer him the $20,000 if he’ll tell what he knows about Powers. Agreeing to this surefire plan, Fletcher greedily begins to count the bills.

  That evening, with the money in a satchel, Heyes and Curry break into Powers’s home. Noiselessly, they search for a place to hide the bag. They stuff it up the fireplace, but it falls down and creates such a clatter Powers is awakened. With candle and shotgun in hand, he investigates the noise and, just to be sure nothing’s been disturbed, checks his wall safe hidden behind a painting. Heyes and Curry watch with interest from their hiding place outside under the window. Satisfied that all is secure, the banker heads back to bed. They debate their chances of getting back in to hide the money. Meanwhile a troop of lawmen gallops feverishly on their way to Powers’s house.

  Once more inside, Heyes presses his ear against the combination lock of the safe and begins to turn the dial. Anxious moments later, he opens the door, but the moneybag won’t fit. A sudden loud banging on his door awakens Powers again, as Heyes and Curry scramble to cram the money into the already full safe.

  Powers opens his door to Red Gap’s Sheriff McWhirter, Assistant Territorial Attorney General Collins, his assistants, and Winford Fletcher. Just as Heyes slams the safe door and the two climb back out the window, Powers leads the lawmen into his study. They
have a warrant to search his house on Fletcher’s word that Powers conspired to use Heyes and Curry as a ruse while he robbed his own bank.

  As the boys watch through the window, Powers lets them search anywhere, even his safe. No one is more surprised than he to see the moneybag in it. Dumping it out onto the desk, Collins assumes it’s the loot from the second robbery. Powers blusters that it had to be Heyes and Curry who stole it and put it there. Collins’s assistant notes that some came from the first robbery — $20,000 of it. Suddenly Fletcher is aghast.

  He hastens back to his office, opens his safe and finds, not the $20,000 Heyes and Curry had given him, but a note from J. Smith advising him to get a better safe.

  From a high ridge, the boys watch as the lawmen lead Powers away in handcuffs. There’s one basic business principle Powers didn’t know. “Crime doesn’t pay,” quotes Heyes. “Nope,” Curry says, “Never get involved in another man’s game.”

  GUEST CAST

  BRODERICK CRAWFORD — CHESTER E. POWERS

  RUDY VALLEE — WINFORD FLETCHER

  FORD RAINEY — ASST. ATTORNEY GEN. COLLINS

  DENNIS FIMPLE — KYLE MURTRY

  CLARKE GORDON — SHERIFF MCWHIRTER

  JERRY HARPER — TOWNSMAN

  BILL TOOMEY — JENKINS

  JOE SCHNEIDER — JESS

  RICHARD WRIGHT — BILLY

  Roy Huggins told the story to Ric Hardman and originally titled it “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Red Rock” because in it he brought back Ralph Peterson, the banker from “The McCreedy Bust.” When they encounter him again on the train, Peterson is playing poker with Edgar Simpkins, an insurance man from San Francisco. Simpkins recognizes Heyes and Curry from a train he was on that they held up. Following the same story line, they enter Red Rock on foot and encounter the sheriff from “The McCreedy Bust” who welcomes them back to town. Later, when they’re arguing with Peterson in his study, Heyes reveals that they’re hoping the Governor of Wyoming will do for them what the Governor of Colorado did for Billy Brewster, i.e., give them amnesty someday. When they need to break into the bank’s safe, Huggins wanted to “use the same technique we used in ‘How to Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson’…we can probably use a lot of the stock from that picture.” [58] While they’re robbing Peterson’s bank, two strangers who vaguely look like Heyes and Curry will be hurrahing Charleytown. It’s been real quiet in Charleytown and the town council is thinking of doing away with the sheriff’s job. The sheriff happens to be Heyes’s cousin Duke. No town would stand for firing the sheriff after Heyes and Curry had been seen there. [59]

  Three weeks later, the first draft of the teleplay came in, written by Bronson Howitzer, an alias of Ric Hardman (?). Shortly thereafter, Chester Powers was substituted for Ralph Peterson and Edgar Simpkins, “a whey faced worried looking accountant in his forties” [60] became Winford Fletcher. “Followers of the restless lives of Curry and Heyes…will recognize Winford Fletcher instantly as the greedy victim of Clementine’s virtuous vendetta.” [61] Fletcher may have lost a fortune, but he apparently didn’t do any jail time.

  When Powers invites the boys to play poker, Heyes replies that Whist is his game. Unless betting heavily on the outcome, Whist seems much too tame for the risk-taker in Heyes. He merely used the old gambit to con the other players into believing he was a novice poker player. However, his remark about it once costing him $20,000 to learn a Hoyle rule disproves his original story. No amateur would deliberately find himself involved in a game with a $20,000 pot.

  With the kind of money available to them from all of the safes they’ve robbed, Heyes and Curry could have taken off for South America as did Butch and Sundance. Laying low for a few years and then returning to find that the governor had granted the amnesty in their absence may have been a good plan. In several other episodes, the boys discussed it. In “Everything Else You Can Steal,” Heyes tells Jenny they may head for South America. That they don’t speak “South American” may be a deterrent, she says. When Heyes wins big in “The Biggest Game in the West,” Curry suggests they take the money and go to China. Indeed, if Glen Larson had his way, the boys may have gone to London and had a run-in with Jack the Ripper. [62] But when the suggestion comes from Chester Powers, Curry strongly reiterates that, though they may have considered the idea, they like it right here, thank you, and want to stay. That Powers would have them abscond with stolen money plays a part in Curry’s resistance. They have expended so much time and effort into striving for amnesty, Curry is not about to give it up, no matter how basic a business principle it is.

  At the end of the story, the federal agents identify the money from the first robbery. Nowadays all US currency looks the same, but Huggins was aware that in the 1880s, each bank issued its own money. Bills from one bank could look quite different from any other and, therefore, would be easy to identify. The money from the first robbery was issued by the bank in St. Louis. [63]

  The Men That Corrupted Hadleyburg

  “What made us go the way we went? How come you and I ended up with warrants for our arrest that could put us in jail for twenty years?”

  Kid Curry

  STORY: JOHN THOMAS JAMES

  TELEPLAY: DICK NELSON AND JOHN THOMAS JAMES

  DIRECTOR: JEFF COREY

  SHOOTING DATES: DECEMBER 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 1971

  ORIGINAL US AIR DATE: JANUARY 27, 1972

  ORIGINAL UK AIR DATE: APRIL 23, 1973

  Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry lurk anxiously outside the Denver office of Bannerman Detectives, Inc., waiting for their old friend Harry Briscoe. When he appears they each grab an elbow and steer him into the nearby saloon for a talk.

  Harry hunches his collar up to his ears, not wanting to be seen with them. Heyes tells Harry they need a big favor. Harry reluctantly agrees he owes them something, so he listens to their story, even though he has a feeling he isn’t going to like it.

  Curry and Heyes were in Yuma when they spotted a sheriff who knew them. They barely escaped his notice and decided to head into the hills where they found a nice spot to camp and fish and reflect upon the course their lives have taken. Curry wonders why they ended up with a price on their heads. Heyes figures it’s because they grew up in the middle of a brutal civil war and lost their parents at a young age. Curry is still skeptical and Heyes admits his theory is probably just a way of making himself feel better. Their musings are interrupted by a demand that they put their hands up.

  Prospector Matt Tapscott, his wife Bess and young son Tommy have overheard every word. They’re going to take the boys to Hadleyburg and turn them in.

  Heyes and Curry ride in the back of the Tapscotts’ wagon, securely tied and barely able to keep their balance as the wagon bounces over ruts. When Matt asks for a drink of water, Bess hands the rifle over to her son. The wagon hits a rock, sending Tommy and the rifle flying, and Curry promptly stomps on the gun, holding it down with his foot. “Why’d you do that?” the boy asks when Curry kicks it over to him. Curry explains, with his hands tied he can’t pick up the gun. They’d have to knock him out, jump off the wagon and hope his parents didn’t see them. “Knocking a tough kid like you out, now that’s not easy,” says Heyes. Tommy smiles.

  That night over supper, the boys get to know the Tapscotts a little better. Matt tells them how he missed out on the biggest strike this side of Virginia City because he chose the wrong direction to take at a fork in the road, but the $20,000 he’ll get for turning in the outlaws will suit him just fine. Heyes reveals the amnesty deal. Matt is sympathetic to their plight, but he’s still going to turn them in.

  In Hadleyburg, Matt does just that, to the delight of the sheriff. He confirms the amount of the reward and instructs Matt on how to collect it. The prospector has finally struck pay dirt.

  That night the Tapscotts have a celebratory dinner, but the celebration falls flat. Matt tries to buoy his family’s spirits with the prospect of all that money, but it’s no use. They’re all miserable.

  Bef
ore Matt can visit the boys in jail, the sheriff searches him and finds the gun he’s got stuck in the back of his pants. He explains that he always carries it there, because he’s no gunfighter. Heyes and Curry watch this exchange, hiding their smiles. Matt tries to strike up a conversation, but there’s not much to say. Learning the boys don’t like the food, he offers to have Bess cook something for them. Matt leaves and a puzzled Heyes remarks, “I don’t understand it, but I do appreciate it.”

  The next day the deputy brings over a blackberry pie that Bess baked. As he cuts into it, Curry indulges in a little wishful thinking. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I started cutting into this pie and there’s a file in it?” Heyes tells him he’s been reading too many dime novels. Clink! Curry digs into the pie with his fingers and comes up with a gun. Heyes wraps it in a napkin and hides it. The boys wolf down the rest of the pie planning their escape.

  When the sheriff relieves the deputy on watch, Heyes calls him over and points the gun at him. The lawman is dismayed at this turn of events, opening the cell door and asking the boys if they really think they’re doing the right thing. Pretty sure, Curry assures him. They leave the sheriff bound and gagged in the cell and escape.

  Another round of beers is delivered as Heyes finishes telling Harry what happened. The most fascinating thing, Harry thinks, is that it doesn’t have anything to do with him. Curry reveals why it does. As a Bannerman detective he can wire Hadleyburg inquiring about the Tapscotts without raising suspicion. The boys want to make sure they’re all right.

  They wait outside the telegraph office while Harry sends the inquiry. The response is what they feared — the Tapscotts are about to go on trial for aiding and abetting the escape of two outlaws. Harry suggests they break the Tapscotts out of jail, but Curry points out that making fugitives of them isn’t in the best interests of their son. Harry realizes there’s nothing the boys can do for the Tapscotts, but they could do something to help him with his job in Colorado Springs. A wealthy Denver man lost $17,000 at the Silver Palace casino there and has now hired the BDI to prove the games are crooked. Heyes agrees to help Harry, because he’s thought of a way it will help the Tapscotts too.