The Grave

Description: Season 3, Episode 7

Air Date: October 27, 1961

Plot Summary: After an outlaw is killed, his pursuer is challenged to visit the grave alone.

Review: The only thing really holding this episode back is that it feels short and shallow; it needed an extra plot line to fill things out or something. Despite this emptiness, I love that the episode is presented like a classic ghost story you would imagine being told around a fire. Even the style looked moody with a few ominous images such as the outlaw's sister at his grave. Lee Van Cleef is also here in a minor supporting role; people may remember him for his iconic role as the "bad" part of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

All that happens is the people of a random town are forced to shoot a local outlaw that has been annoying them or something; we don't get a ton of back story regarding the outlaw. Typically the townspeople would not do such a thing, but they are tired of waiting for the bounty hunter-ish guy they hired to seal the deal. When this man shows up, named Conny, he questions the situation that led to the outlaw's death; in fact, way too much time is spent talking about the circumstances of the death rather than what led up to everything. A few of the locals believe Conny is a coward and was too afraid to fight the outlaw. The outlaw's sister believes this as well and she antagonizes Conny. Apparently the outlaw has sworn ghostly revenge should Conny have the courage to go to his grave; they claim his hand will reach up out of the ground to kill Conny. Growing tired of everyone questioning his courage, Conny is challenged to visit the outlaw's grave. The only caveat is that Conny must place a specific knife into the grave in order to prove he went there.

Sure enough, Conny works up the confidence to visit the grave, but he is startled by the outlaw's sister and every little bump in the night. After placing the knife into the grave, and attempting to run away like a bitch, Conny is shown being pulled backward. The next morning, the locals believe Conny backed out of the wager, but they realize his horse and supplies are still there. Working up their own courage, they investigate if the ghost story could be real after all. When the locals go to the grave they find Conny dead. One of the locals believes that what must have happened was Conny accidentally stabbed the knife into his own coat, then, when he went to leave, he became so scared of the pullback that he had a heart attack. The outlaw's sister claims that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction that night and Conny's coat couldn't have been caught in the knife. The episode ends with the sister cackling like a lunatic as we are left to wonder if it really was the ghost or not. Overall, not too bad. There was room to make things better, and cover more material than 15 minutes of arguing about who said what. but this can be forgiven considering that's probably how a classic ghost story would play out.

A haunting image to be sure: