#28 - "The Sound of Terror"
SEASON ONE
1965 - 1966
The script for this episode was reworked from a Wagon Train script,
"The Trace McCloud Story" 3-2-64. The hero's name is now Shamus McCloud, a sailor who comes to town looking for his brother who died in the Laredo Hotel. There's little action; it's something of a western version of an English drawing room murder mystery.
NiteOwl Review: Not one of our favorite episodes. The script was better-suited to the Wagon Train series with Charlie Wooster playing the bumbling detective and an unknown passenger playing the suspect played here by above-suspicion Joe.
Cast Note: Tom Simcox costarred with William Smith and Peter Brown in Piranha. Deforest Kelly guested in many westerns prior to boarding the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek as Bones McCoy.
The Rangers are almost superfluous to the plot: Joe is a not-very-convincing suspect. Chad and Reese play boy detective and bumbling detective respectively. First down is a dog belonging to the doctor who treated McCloud's dead brother, then a crooked gambler who held Joe's IOU's, the hotel proprietess and a blacksmith. An attempt is made on the assistant to the owner of a traveling Museum of Horrors.
McCloud insists the Rangers lock him up so he won't be a suspect in the next murder. As he, Joe and play cards in jail, they figure out that each victim was doing something involving high pitched noise howling, whistling, making tea, filing a metal wheel, playing a horn. They remember that the knife grinder used ear plugs to keep out the noise of grinding and rush to his wagon where they are just in time to save the hotel keeper's daughter who was watching Reese use the grinding wheel.
Reese
THE VICTIMS
Joe
Chad
THE DETECTIVES
SUSPECT?
Doctor's Dog
Gambler
Hotel Owner
Hotel Owner's Daughter
Knife Grinder/Murderer
Original air date Apr 7, 1966
Directed by William Witney
Written by John McGreevey

Regular Cast
Neville Brand as Reese Bennett
Peter Brown as Chad Cooper
William Smith as Joe Riley
Phil Carey as Capt. Parmalee

Guest Cast
John Carradine as Prof. Smythe
DeForest Kelly as Dr. Ingram
Tom Simcox as Shamus McCloud
Virginia Christine as Mrs. Halsey
Laraine Stephens as Barbara Halsey
Kay E. Kuter as Ernie Venner
Harry Lauter as Spence Gillis
Tiger Joe Marsh as Quitch
Official Peter Brown Fan Site