In short an easy way to have gotten the ep Shadow Play to have been way better and still strongly link to Gunsmoke would have been Ken Curtis as Adam Grant ( see above) as a valuable Gunsmoke link and having Inger Stevens as a far more attractive dream-like wife Mrs. Ritchie and have her make the ep way more intense than the forgettable, plainer woman who actually did get the part. Shadow Play was not as good as it could have been!

Switch to decaf.

I am not high. Am just making sense am I!

I find ways to improve things.

And again I did not initially compare Harry Townes' inferior looks to that way better looking lady playing his wife. That was your comparison not mine!!! Plus, Inger Stevens was a great suggestion from her heavenly great looks to her excellent ability to act tense to her being on TZ twice already.

I will add this. The TZ ep 'To Serve Man'was filmed over many months. They should have waited a few weeks to film Inger Stevens in this ep ( if they needed to)and had a much, much superior product!

@pt100 said:

Switch to decaf.

LOL!!! Exactly!

@Benton12 said:

I find ways to improve things.

Correction: You think you find ways to improve things.

@Benton12 said:

And again I did not initially compare Harry Townes' inferior looks to that way better looking lady playing his wife. That was your comparison not mine!!! Plus, Inger Stevens was a great suggestion from her heavenly great looks to her excellent ability to act tense to her being on TZ twice already.

PT 100's comparison was the right one. Couples tend, in real life, to be of similar attractiveness. His wife just needed to be more attractive then he was. She didn't have to be as attractive as Inger Stevens to have the comparison be believable.

As you bounce all over the place, jumping from one topic to the next, in a sort of stream of consciousness mode, your strong opinions (and excessive use of exclamation points) don't necessarily mean you are correct. They just mean you are opinionated and overuse exclamation points.

@Moon_Doggie sIu8xqaid:

@Benton12 said:

And again I did not initially compare Harry Townes' inferior looks to that way better looking lady playing his wife. That was your comparison not mine!!! Plus, Inger Stevens was a great suggestion from her heavenly great looks to her excellent ability to act tense to her being on TZ twice already.

PT 100's comparison was the right one. Couples tend, in real life, to be of similar attractiveness. His wife just needed to be more attractive then he was. She didn't have to be as attractive as Inger Stevens to have the comparison be believable.

As you bounce all over the place, jumping from one topic to the next, in a sort of stream of consciousness mode, your strong opinions (and excessive use of exclamation points) don't necessarily mean you are correct. They just mean you are opinionated and overuse exclamation points.

You have had your say. Now mine. It was supposed to be a beautiful women as spoken by Carson. Plain and simple. Most women are far better looking than their husbands--without even being beautiful. That woman was just not quite beautiful. What was so much a dream about a woman that looked like that? Also, what of Miss. Stevens' superb ability to generate great tension vs. that rather ineffectual woman? ( The guy that wrote the TZ Companion wrote that she played TZ with great tension.)

Also, I have a right to go on to other slightly different points if I wish. And on other points I can because I also started this thread. PT would not have a point to make (according to you)if I had not. I do not have to listen to your insolence (and you are on the board I started BTW) and I am putting you on ignore!

Substantiation. Alan Alda liked Kim II Sung mass-murderer-- wrong of him. But Mr. Alda did zero on what made Larry Linville so brilliant as Frank Burns. He stated ( in his autobio) that Linville managed to play Frank Burns many different ways and Alda did not know how he did it. Ken Curtis was a very similar actor to Larry Linville. He could play Festus quite a differently from episode to episode! He could be incredible. In the last season of Gunsmoke watch and see the ultra-incredible countenance Curtis makes in the show's opening credits. How they bypassed him for an Emmy was mysterious and criminal. Dennis Weaver had no such ability to play Chester so differently. Weaver was a solidly good but an inferior actor.

God, does a man dream much of owning a station wagon? That wife of Ritchie's was a station wagon. Miss. Steven's would have been a Rolls Royce!

@Benton12 said:

Substantiation. Alan Alda liked Kim II Sung mass-murderer-- wrong of him. But Mr. Alda did zero on what made Larry Linville so brilliant as Frank Burns. He stated ( in his autobio) that Linville managed to play Frank Burns many different ways and Alda did not know how he did it. Ken Curtis was a very similar actor to Larry Linville. He could play Festus quite a differently from episode to episode! He could be incredible. In the last season of Gunsmoke watch and see the ultra-incredible countenance Curtis makes in the show's opening credits. How they bypassed him for an Emmy was mysterious and criminal. Dennis Weaver had no such ability to play Chester so differently. Weaver was a solidly good but an inferior actor.

🙄

@bratface said:

@Benton12 said:

Substantiation. Alan Alda liked Kim II Sung mass-murderer-- wrong of him. But Mr. Alda did zero on what made Larry Linville so brilliant as Frank Burns. He stated ( in his autobio) that Linville managed to play Frank Burns many different ways and Alda did not know how he did it. Ken Curtis was a very similar actor to Larry Linville. He could play Festus quite a differently from episode to episode! He could be incredible. In the last season of Gunsmoke watch and see the ultra-incredible countenance Curtis makes in the show's opening credits. How they bypassed him for an Emmy was mysterious and criminal. Dennis Weaver had no such ability to play Chester so differently. Weaver was a solidly good but an inferior actor.

🙄

Hi @bratface. I guess you've read at least part of this weird thread. I certainly don't mean to be insulting, but I think @Benton12 has an obsessive fixation on Ken Curtis and may also have ADD. I'm concerned for him.

He also seems not to understand that an actor's performance is based largely on the writing and direction, and may involve many retakes to get it the way the director wants. Just looking at Curtis's relative lack of awards vs. Weaver's slew of awards sort of says it all. Curtis was an okay character actor that didn't seem to have the range that Weaver had, but nothing could ever convince @Benton12, so why bother?

Now he'll probably put me on Ignore also, which is fine. It just means that everyone else except him will benefit from the interchange.

The board that put out Emmys passed by Irene Ryan ( Beverly Hillbillies), James Best and Sorel Books ( Dukes of Hazard). Performers on TV who turned in undeniably excellent performances sometimes never even got close to an Emmy. Ken Curtis could be added to the list. Agents--that is how well you fare in Hollywood!

For more on Alan Alda favoring Kim ll Sung see my other postings!