User Reviews

Whilst watching this episode I was amazed at the performance of the actress playing Angie Wheeler. My mind was trying to place her. When the end credits rolled it said 'Introducing Tina Hermensen' I checked the name on the IMDb and found this to be her only credit. Having recently watched every episode of The Courtship Of Eddie's Father, it dawned on me that this was actually Kristina Holland! I tried to correct this on IMDb but to no avail. So if anyone happens to watch this episode they will now know who she is. I won't reveal any spoilers, suffice to say, it was a terrific half hour. The Jerry Goldsmith theme will stick in your mind.

The third episode of "The Loner" entitled "The Lonely Calico Queen" finds our hero bringing word of the death of a man who was romantically linked to a dance hall girl desperate to give up the life of a dance hall girl. Angie Wheeler (one-time only actress Tina Hermensen) learns to her chagrin that her boyfriend, William Carstairs, has been slain. In fact, a rough and tough bounty hunter, Cable (Edward Faulkner of "McLintock"), shot the unfortunate Carstairs in the back and out of the saddle during a chase that had lasted three days and three nights. Bill Colton (Lloyd Bridges) witnesses the shooting. He finds a letter to William Carstairs with a return address to a dance hall girl. Somehow, Angie gets the mistaken notion that Colton is Carstairs. Eventually, she realizes that a relationship with "The Loner" is out of the question. The rude, crude bounty hunter shows up and threatens to blow the whistle on Colton. When he climbs the stairs to inform on Colton to Angie, Colton threatens him. A dance hall girl comes between them, and Cable boots her into him and the two flounder to the floor. Cable whips out his revolver, but Colton wounds him in the side. Cable flees from the saloon. Afterward, Angie tells Colton that another dance hall girl told her about Colton's real identity.

The episode concludes with Angie back in the line-up on the dance floor kicking up her heels, destitute in a saloon. The first part of the episode when Colton confronts Cable over Carstairs' corpse contains a couple of good lines of dialogue. "Mister," Cable tells Colton, "when you're working bounty, you gotta get them anyway you can." Later, when Cable appeals to Colton to assist him getting Carstairs aboard his horse, Colton replies, "If you're man enough to kill a man, you're man enough to bring him in." Edward Faulkner gives a good account of himself as a despicable bounty hunter. Traditionally, at least until Steve McQueen muddied the waters, bounty hunters were considered the lowest scum of the west. I believe that the urge by CBS-TV to curb violence on television prompted the gunfight in the saloon to end with Cable escaping with his life. This episode is as realistic as it is grim about the prospects for a woman in the Old West. Angie summarizes the life of "a drink pusher in a dance hall" as "they're paid to entertain, they get a dime a drink and all the have to do in return is sit in your lap and make believe—make believe they are not as cheap and dirty as the customers."

Altogether, "The Lonely Calico Queen" depicts the plight of a dance hall girl. The girls behave like vultures, prepared to pounce on the next man who enters their domain. This is not Colton's usual, clear-cut, black & white predicament. Colton refuse to play along with the dance hall boss, Marge (Jeanne Cooper), and give forlorn Angie something to dream about in her terrible life. It is interesting to note that when Angie comes to Colton's room to talk with him, he leaves the door cracked.