When wanted outlaw Johnny Reno beats Jim Hardie to the draw, Hardie survives his wound but is bed-ridden for a time. Wells Fargo promotes him to a desk job as a district supervisor, but Hardie is troubled by his recent failure against Reno, who has apparently been receiving insider information about Wells Fargo's strongbox shipments. Hardie joins a new troubleshooter, Jack Simmons, on Reno's trail, but Simmons may cause him more trouble than Reno.
Faster Gun is one of the very best episodes of the series, due to a great script from series veteran Samuel A. Peeples and and an extremely interesting cast under the expert direction of Earl Bellamy, who directed more episodes of ToWF than any other director. Peeples' script really pops, with multiple plot lines and a group of colorful characters with ample amounts of brisk dialogue. As a result the episode shines as one of the very best of the series.
Many shows during the Golden Age of TV Westerns included a similar script, where the main character loses a quick draw and begins to question whether or not he's lost his nerve. Gunsmoke's very first episode, "Matt Gets It" is one example, and the series did it again in "There Never Was a Horse" in S4.
The episode is also notable as it includes Bob Wilke as Wells Fargo troubleshooter Jack Simmons. Wilke is extremely underrated and under appreciated IMO, and I'm always happy to see his name in the credits. He never disappoints. Although Wilke never reprised this role in subsequent episodes, he did appear in S5's The Wade Place, as basically the same character with a different name. His interactions with Jim Hardie in both episodes are nothing short of classic, and are exremely entertaining, with considerable action and a good bit of humor. I just don't understand why the showrunners didn't have him in repeat episodes, similar to Edgar Buchanen as Bob Dawson. Wilke really contibuted to these two episodes in a big way, and there was enormous potential for a lot more had it happened. But I'll take what I can get, and Bob Wilke's two episodes are both major standouts in the series.
In addition to Bob Wilke, the cast was very intriguing as I mentioned earlier. Tom Neal appears as Johnny Reno. I'll say this, Neal's bio could never be called boring or pedestrian. He was at the center of a couple different noteable scandals, one of which resulted in a 10 year prison sentence, of which he served 6 years. You'll need to read his bio for yourself, as it's far too long to discuss here. Interestingly, one of the threads in this episode is somewhat similar to Neal's actual life, where Barbara Payton was engaged to Franchot Tone while running around with Neal. Len Lesser appeared as Conger, and he had an extensive career, including a regular role on Seinfeld as bizarre Uncle Leo. Exotic beauty Eugenia Paul appears as femme fatale Carmen Talbot, and Francis De Sales, and William Bakewell also appear.
One of Jim Hardie's best, highly recommended!
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