I just shared a Facebook past with a very special classmate of mine from my undergraduate days at Lincoln Memorial University. We were recalling how simple times were then. I was thinking about how smart I thought I was then, and how misguided I was in reality.
I remember a visit I made during my freshman year to the girls’ dormitory lounge. It was the one place in the female dormitory that males were legitimately allowed to visit every day, but only at prescribed hours.
There was a movie on television, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I don’t recall to that point ever having seen anything of Mr. Hitchcock’s on television or anywhere else. The movie captured my attention, and I watched it with fascination “to the bitter end”.
The basic plot of the movie is that this huge conglomeration of birds attacks a city, basically pecking the life out of anyone unfortunate enough to encounter them. The birds flew down chimneys, came inside through broken windows, etc.
Suspense was prevalent throughout the movie, and Mr. Hitchcock was renowned for being a master of suspense. At every attack of the birds there was suspense—would this particular person or group of people survive? If they survived, how much longer would they survive? Was there anyone who could figure out how to overcome these feathered fiends?
The very end of the movie, as best I remember, showed several birds surrounding a house. The few people inside carefully made their way to a car as the birds watched. The people got inside the car and drove away, leaving the birds behind. The end.
I remember feeling so let down at this ending. As my mother was fond of saying when a television program did not meet her expectations, “That didn’t end right”.
It sure didn’t end like a good Stephen King movie, where suspense is always present, and good always overcomes evil, at least for the short term. It certainly didn’t end like a Hallmark movie, where, at least for me, there is rarely suspense but everyone’s problems are solved and life is “happy ever after” at the end of two hours.
I thought of my mother yesterday. My wife and I were watching an episode of Gunsmoke titled “The Gallows”. Actor Jeremy Slate (who consequently made three appearances on CBS’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Slate Retrieved September 8, 2020) guest starred as Pruit Dover (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0594437/, Retrieved September 8, 2020), a man falsely accused of murder who was sentenced to hang. As Marshal Dillon was delivering Pruit to the location of his scheduled hanging, the two are accosted by a disturbed man who wounds Marshal Dillion. Pruit has this prime chance to escape, but he stays and digs a bullet from the marshal’s shoulder. Pruit is honor bound to accept his sentence rather than become a fugitive, and Dillon is duty bound to deliver Pruit for the carrying out of his sentence. Dillon did give Pruit a chance to escape, but Pruit returned, explaining to Dillon that it might cost him his badge to lose a prisoner. The episode ends with Pruit calmly following his hangman up the gallow steps, and Marshal Dillon walking alone down the street.
My wife said, “We didn’t even get to hear him fall through the trap.” My mother would have said, “That didn’t end right,” and I would have agreed with her. If I had been writing the script, I believe I would have had Dillon appeal to the governor for a stay of execution, and even in writing I probably wouldn’t have had the heart to let the kind, innocent Pruit be executed.
So here I sit, the one who always Hallmark movies for always having a happy ending, criticizing a western episode where there is not a happy ending. At least the Gunsmoke episode emphasizes a harsh reality—the innocent don’t always go free, and the end isn’t always happy.
At least the episode was suspenseful. There was hope to the very end that somehow Pruit would go free or that Dillon would work some miracle. There was wonder that a man would accept a death sentence for a crime he didn’t even commit and choose not to escape when given a clear chance. And there was comfort in the steadfastness of Marshal Dillon who remained true to his oath even though doing so was so emotionally painful.
All in all, the episode was refreshing in these times when there is not always honor among either thieves or the justice system. Just as was true then, it can be true now.
Next week I’ll discuss another of those wonderful “in” places. Until then, Faithful Reader, I leave you with a pertinent quote from my world of email.

One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense. It really gets the adrenaline flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get.