Small Screen Sagebrush: the TV Western thread

There have been other threads but I decided to start one myself, because TV westerns are almost all I watch nowadays.

I know lists are a lazy way to post, but maybe this will get some conversations started:

Some of my favorite western episodes:

Gunsmoke -- "The Round Up"

Have Gun Will Travel -- "The Ballad Of Oscar Wilde", "Squatter's Rights", "Genesis"

Wagon Train -- "The Prairie Story", "The Christopher Hale Story" w/Lee Marvin

Maverick -- "Pappy", "Shady Deal At Sunny Acres", "Gunshy"

Rawhide -- "Incident of the Prophecy"

The Westerner -- "Line Camp"

Bonanza -- "The Crucible" w/Lee Marvin

The Virginian -- "The Brazen Bell" w/George C. Scott, "Ride A Dark Trail"

The Big Valley -- "Journey Into Violence"

Daniel Boone -- "Nightmare"

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Life magazine, 1958:



TV Guide, 1957:

 

Both James Arness and Dennis Weaver did Museum interviews, so I'm sure I'll be posting a bunch of these over the next few days:

 

James Arness is great as Zeb Macahan.
My favorite western as a kid

 

HOW GUNSMOKE FILMED AND ASSEMBLED A SCENE

 

There's another photo of the Warners cowboys out there from a different angle. I'll have to see if I can find it.

Note the absence of Clint "Cheyenne" Walker. He was holding out at the time in a contract dispute.



A publicity photo shot in NYC for the Boone show:

 

This scene, from the 1957 Gunsmoke episode "Buffalo Man", has become a fixture in film schools across the country. The producers saved various unused angles and outtakes, giving the entire package out to the editors union for use as a cutting exercise. Several generations of wannabe filmmakers have worked on it.

There have been all sorts of re-edits: music videos, Marshal Dillon made into the villain... I think the one below is my favorite:

 

Alias Smith & Jones was my generation's Maverick. Not surprisingly, the same man was responsible for both, Roy Huggins (he also created The Fugitive). Pete Duel was in some ways just as talented as James Garner, and some AS&J episodes can more than hold their own with Maverick's best.

An especially enjoyable aspect of AS&J was the Burke's Law-style casting, emphasizing familiar western faces. Among the sagebrush vets who guested on the show:
Walter Brennan
John Russell
James Drury
Neville Brand
Andy Devine
Jack Elam
Earl Holliman
George Montgomery
Forrest Tucker
Pernell Roberts



The classic card game from "Night Of The Red Dog" (a reworking of a script Huggins had originally written for his series Run for Your Life). Note the presence of western standbys Calhoun and Kelly. Paul Fix of Rifleman fame was also in it.

 

Clint Walker, James Garner, Randolph Scott on the WB lot (1957)

 

Clips from the Museum interview James Arness did. Includes John Wayne's intro for the premiere episode, as well as the notorious gag opening Arness shot in the late '60s.

 

When I was little kid I anxiously awaited each week for a new episode. I still have a few of my Have Gun-Will Travel calling cards from toy gun and holster set.

 

OMG! another AS&J fan exists!? i try to talk to people about this and they look at me like I have two heads. Pete Duels' suicide was the first time I had to deal with a celebrity I enjoyed taking their own life. unfortunately not the last.