Winner Take All

This episode is a slightly twisted melodrama consisting of a manipulative woman who comes between two brothers. None of the guest stars are household names, but they all do a very good job.

Notable quotes: Relco:"Ain't you just a little bit out of your territory here Marshall?" Matt:"I take my territory with me and right now, you're in it."

This is a great episode for Festus fans. Ken Curtis (Festus) is still fleshing out the role that would become his signature. He is not yet Matt's Deputy and at the onset, he arrives in Dodge at the end of a cattle drive. He has some very funny scenes with Burt Reynolds as Quint and with Doc (Milburn Stone) and Kitty (Amanda Blake) at the Longbranch where they are introduced to a pearl button bangle billy of a Haggen Hunch at the Roulette wheel. Later on he saves Matt's life and they team up to defeat the bad guys, this is classic television.

I believe that the poor fellow that gets shot in the opening credits might be Ted Jordan, the same actor who would go on to portray the loud-mouthed Nathan Burke in the color episodes.

If you love Gunsmoke, this episode is the Nazz.

Gunsmoke is my all time favorite tv show but there some elements I abhored such as Festus's creepy over the top adoration of Matt and the ridiculodly tiny, delicte, fresh skinned ,shiny haited women of their old west...even the saloon girls! Oh, I know why they did it but in doing so they totally destroyed the authenticity of the show. This just another one of those so so scripts

John Milford (Pinto) plays the bossy older brother of Tom Simcox (Curly), who is in love with the town tramp, Margaret Blye (Karen). Karen is in love with Curly's money, because he just sold a herd and has $18,000.00 in his saddle bags. $18,000 in 1870 is worth $401,628.09 today.

Curly does not want to give it to his brother to put in the bank, so he has this money in the saddle bags of the horse for a few days. It would have been an interesting twist if Karen had ridden off with the horse and the money to Tascosa, so that Relco (H. M. Wynant) could fight the two brothers for the money.

Unfortunately, what happens is that Karen keeps winding up Curly about his brother Pinto, and eventually that leads to mayhem and murder. Marshal Dillon is on the trail, with Festus behind him. Tascosa has lots of bad guys planning to rob and kill Curly, and Karen quickly betrays him.

The ending of this story had some gun-fighting action, but it should have gone further. Curly was about to kill Karen, and she deserved it.

In this episode we have two brothers, Pinto and Curly Renner, that live on a farm their father left them. Pinto, being the older brother, has always kind of protected the younger Curly but now that Curly has meet a woman, Karen Dean, he has been wanting to prove that he is a man around the farm. When Curly gets back from selling a herd of cattle he refuses to give the money to Pinto saying that he will take care of the bills. Now there is a feud-like difference between the two brothers and Karen is right in the middle stirring the pot.

It will all come to a head when Curly and Karen decide to run away together taking the money with them. In the stable the two brothers meet but only one will be seen leaving the area. Matt will make a trip to a nearby town to bring one of the brothers, in the company of the Jezebel, to justice.

This was a nice story but left much about the brothers relationship untapped. It mainly centered around the young dance-hall girl, Karen, and the way she uses people to get what she thinks she deserves. With such as serious manner being discussed, the filler part where Festus gambles with Doc's dollar seemed way out of place in this episode. It took away from a serious drama and tried to insert some lighthearted humor that just did not help the show in the least. There is nothing wrong with the story it just left so much interesting material, about the brothers, untouched.

Pinto and Curly Renner are brothers that live on a ranch near Dodge City. Pinto is the older of the two, and he considers himself the guardian and caretaker of his younger brother. Curly resents Pinto's overbearing nature. When Curly sells a herd of their cattle for a large sum of money, he refuses to turn the money over to Pinto.

Curly is involved romantically with a "saloon girl" named Karen Dean, and Pinto disapproves of the relationship. Pinto tries to entice Karen to leave Curly and Dodge by offering her money, but Karen figures she can do better by running away with Curly and the $18,000 he was paid for the cattle.

When Pinto confronts Curly in the Dodge City stables, Curly shoots and kills his older brother. Curly and Karen immediately take off for Tascosa where they intend to hide out. What Curly doesn't know is that a man named Kurt Relko and his partner Tex Shipley are also hiding out from the law in Tascosa, and Relko and Karen were lovers at one time.

This establishes a kind of a mess of a plot where Matt Dillon is pursuing Curly, Festus Haggen is following Matt, Matt is ambushed, Festus saves him, Curly and Karen are hiding out, Curly regrets killing his brother, and Karen is playing up to both Relko and Curly trying to engineer the situation to her advantage.

This isn't a particularly compelling story, and the sudden resolution lacks much in the way of tension or suspense.

There is also a glaring error in the story. While Curly is lamenting his actions in killing his brother, he compares his situation to the Cain and Abel story in the Bible, but the comparison is not accurate. Curly tells Karen he is just like Cain because he killed his brother for potage. Cain did not kill Abel for food. He killed Abel because he was jealous that Abel's offering to God pleased God, while Cain's offering did not. The Bible story Curly actually referenced is the story of Jacob and Esau where Esau trades Jacob his birthright for a pot of stew, but Esau did not kill his brother.

The cast of character actors here is solid. Tom Simcox is Curly Renner. Simcox appeared in many Gunsmoke episodes and was a familiar face in television shows during this time. John Milford, another familiar Hollywood face, plays the Pinto Renner role. H.M Wynant is Kurt Relko. Wynant appeared in just about every television series at some point during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, including numerous Gunsmoke episodes. He has continued to act well into the 2000s.