From: "Tierman, Rod (RTIE)" <RTIE@chevron.com>
To: "'r.marks@ieee.org'" <r.marks@ieee.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 10:37:02 -0800


     First of all, this page is by far the best Webpage dedicated to one of
the 2 greatest TV Westerns of all time (Have Gun Will Travel being the other
one).     The reason I'm writting you, is because fairly recently, I saw an
episode of Gunsmoke, on TVLand,  with the late Cameron Mitchell.  The
storyline, to me, was remarkably similar to the classic John Wayne wesrern
movie Rio Bravo, with Mitchell playing the Dean Martin ex gunfighter/"drunk"
role (of course Big James Arness portrayed, what appeared to be, the role
that The Duke had).  It even had John Russell in it as the villian (who
played the villian in Rio Bravo).  The name of the episode was "The Iron
Men, October 21, 1974 Written by John Mantley, Directed by Gunnar Hellstrom,
Guest Cast: Cameron Mitchell, John Russell, Barbara Colby, Eric Olson,
George Murdock, William Bryant, Marc Alaimo, Paul Gehrman, Alec Murdock".
This is probably my all time favorite episode, because of the similarities
(Rio Bravo is probably my favorite Western).  Am I imagining things, or did
the writers on Gunsmoke use Rio Bravo as a model for this episode? 
      Thank you,



                    Rod Tierman