Small Screen Sagebrush: the TV Western thread

Wagon Train
"The Echo Pass Story"
Jan 3, 1965

Directed by Joseph Pevney
Written by Calvin Clements, from a novel by Burt and Budd Arthur

Cooper Smith is taken prisoner by a gang of ruthless bank robbers and forced to guide them through hostile desert terrain. Can he pit the gang members against each other before they find water and he is no longer needed?

One of my favorite Robert Fuller episodes, a tense cat and mouse story.

I never cared much for Jack Lord on H5O, but he was an excellent villain and is especially good here, earning audience empathy for a murderous thief. Also features an early appearance by a young James Caan.

Robert Fuller and guest star Diane Brewster

 

Lord turns up as two different characters in Stagecoach West - consecutive episodes, no less!

 

Bonanza
"Black Friday"
Directed by William F. Claxton
Written by Herbert Kastle and John Hawkins
January 22, 1967

In a dusty border town Joe runs into one-time Ponderosa ranch hand Steven Friday, who is now a broken down, alcoholic gunslinger being forced into a gunfight he cannot win.

I am not a huge fan of Bonanza and even less one of Michael Landon. But this is one of his better episodes, a tense, downbeat variation on the famous Gregory Peck film The Gunfighter.

John Saxon as Friday

 

Always disliked westerns growing up. I much preferred comedies.

But in the last decade or so, I've come to appreciate the genre a lot more.

Two series not mentioned yet that I really like are somewhat uncommon series. One is THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT. I found it running one day on a digital subchannel and found it rather interesting with Walter Brennan playing a larger-than-life hero type. It was a pretty good series that ran two seasons in the color era. No brag, just fact.

The second odd western that I've latched onto is THE LONER. This was the last black & white network western running its one season on CBS in the 65-66 season. It starred Lloyd Bridges as a man searching for "something" in the post-civil war west. He interjects himself into the lives of those he runs into each week, often taking the moral high ground. The series was Rod Serling's creation post TWILIGHT ZONE.

 

Always liked both

Re "the last black & white network western": Robert Horton's A Man Called Shenandoah, like The Loner a "drifter" show inspired by The Fugitive's success, ran the same season.

I've seen the Loner pilot. It's a bit preachy but does have deeper characterizations than you usually see in a western.

It you ever find a place online where you can stream the Loner episode with Allan Sherman, let me know.

 

Surprised how many of the western actors are still around in their 90’s

 

We're both right. THE LONER premiered later in the same week as A MAN CALLED SHENANDOAH, so it was the last b&w western to debut on US network TV. A MAN CALLED SHENANDOAH had more first-run episodes, so it outlasted THE LONER, making it the last b&w western with new episodes on network TV.

 

Action in the Afternoon (1953)

Have you always wanted to see a live, five days a week western soap opera shot in Philadelphia and directed by Richard Lester?

Well, wait no more:



Action in the Afternoon - Wikipedia

 

One thing that made those TV westerns special was the theme songs...Cheyenne,Maverick,Zorro,Rawhide,Twenty Six Men-and so on-love those theme songs...Cheyenne,Cheyenne,where will you be camping tonight!!!

 

Got best of Frankie Lane and he sang many of the one you would know.

 

In spite of my youthful disdain for westerns, I did have - and love - Frankie Laine's HELL BENT FOR LEATHER album. Get the Collectables 2-fer and stay away from the European "Hallmark".

 

I agree, the themes were terrific. I posted three needledrops I did from the 1960 album "Swingin West"
that had great jazz arrangements of twelve of the themes. Three of them are on page three of this
thread. When you hear them, you'll be right back in the late fifties/early sixties. Great memories....

 

Bonanza season 12 episode kingdom of fear is fantastic

 

You might give us a hint...

Bonanza - Season 12 Episode 27

All three Cartwright men-Ben, Hoss and Joe-are arrested for trespassing along with their ranch hand Candy. The men are summarily sentenced to a brutal prison camp run by a despot known as The Judge (Alfred Ryder), who specializes in acquiring slave labor to work his gold mine, then in killing his mostly innocent workers when they've outlived their usefulness. Joe manages to escape, but will he be able to save the others? Richard Mulligan also appears as Farley. Written by series star Michael Landon and originally filmed in 1968, the ultra-violent "Kingdom of Fear" was shelved due to the rash of high-profile assassinations in the spring of that year. The episode finally saw the light of day on April 4, 1971, by which time David Canary (Candy) had left the series; accordingly, Canary was given "special guest star" status in the opening credits.​

Also notable as one of the very few post-1965 episodes to mention Adam Cartwright.

 

Hondo
"Hondo and the Judas"
Directed by Lee H. Katzin
Written by Frank Chase
Novembr 3, 1967

Hondo receives a mysterious message hinting that Col William Quantrill, with whose guerillas he served during the Civil War, is still alive.

This little-remembered adaptation of the John Wayne film produced at least one classic episode. With guest stars Ricky Nelson as Jesse James, John Agar as Frank James (he and Ricky were 19 years apart in age), Forrest Tucker as Quantrill, Roy Jenson as Bob Ford, and Richard Bakalyan as Cole Younger. John Carradine even turns up.

Writer Frank Chase was the son of the great western screenwriter Borden Chase (Red River, Vera Cruz, most of the Mann-Stewart films).

 

Wasn't there an episode of[Lawman]where Dan Troop has a showdown, and he reveals that the man he had to outdraw was his brother,anyone remember that one?

 

Yes. I have all the Lawman dvds and saw this one fairly recently (months ago).

 

Iron Horse
High Chaparral
Lancer
Cheyenne
Cimarron strip
Branded
All on here in SoCal KVME

 

YOU DA MAN!!!

 

Kovacs' episode, "Salted Mine", first aired in the spring of 1959 on Schlitz Playhouse of the Stars. So it was in fact the pilot, though I believe it was the second episode aired.



I'm a big Scott Brady fan, and Shotgun Slade is very bad. Allegedly Brady's salary ate up so much of the budget there was little money left for production values. The producers were forced to cut corners, notably flooding each episode w/Brady's narration, aka the "Illustrated Radio" approach: Brady opens a door, enters an empty room. On the soundtrack: "I went into the room. No one was there."

But the real standout aspect of Shotgun Slade is its music score. Not cowboy songs or folk melodies, but contemporary 1950s jazz. It's as if Gunsmoke was scored by Stan Kenton. The effect goes beyond incongruous into the surreal. My guess is there was no money to commission a score, so they bought one cheap from a (private eye?) show that never sold.

 

Haaaaaaaa,I remember that one.

 

Barry Coe was hired and fired as a new 'Bonanza' star in one single episode

In the 1960s, Bonanza was king of television Westerns, and the Cartwrights were household names. To many, they still are. Adam, Little Joe, Hoss, Ben… and Clay?

What, you don't remember Clay? Well, even the most loyal Bonanza watcher can be forgiven for forgetting Clay, "the fifth Cartwright." He lasted one measly episode. That was not the original plan.

Fifty-five years ago, in the fall of 1962, Bonanza was entering its fourth season as the No. 2 show on the tube. But not everyone was happy on the Ponderosa. Pernell Roberts, who portrayed the suave and sophisticated elder Cartwright son, Adam, was an actor reared on the classics. He career began on the stage, with a steady diet of Shakespeare roles both off-Broadway and on Broadway. He was a man who had won an award for starring in Macbeth, and he was thrust into a popular family television drama.

How unsatisfied was he with the role of Adam Cartwright? Well, upon Roberts' death in 2010, his family released a statement declaring, "Accustomed to freely moving from part to part, now being in a wildly popular show, without costume changes, about three grown men living at home with their father, he found did not hold much creative interest for him."

Thus, Bonanza producers moved quickly to replace Roberts. Enter Barry Coe, a devastatingly handsome Southern California native who had nabbed a Golden Globe Award in 1960 for "Most Promising Newcomer - Male." He had just wrapped up a series of his own, ABC's Follow the Sun. Well-tanned with a trim mustache, Coe was written onto Bonanza with the episode "The First Born."

Coe played Clay Stafford, a newcomer who joins the Ponderosa as a worker. Not long after, he's in hot water, having killed a man in self defense. A bunch of angry miners want to run Stafford out of town, which is about when he reveals to Little Joe that they are half-brothers, both born of Marie. Little Joe, having taken to his new friend and supposed half-brother, sticks up for him. Hoss and Adam remain skeptical….

That was how Clay's life on the Ponderosa was set to begin. However, behind the scenes, "Little Joe" was not so warm to Clay. Turns out, Barry Coe's good looks might have hurt his career. Michael Landon, the rising star behind Little Joe, was reportedly worried that this fresh hire would eat into his screentime.

The tension built during production of "The First Born." Filming for the episode was eventually halted for three hours, as the core cast members and producers gathered behind a closed door to discuss a plan of action. After the meeting, Coe was out.

The ending of the episode was rewritten, wherein Clay Stafford decides that a life on the Ponderosa is just not meant for him. It's the last we see of "the fifth Cartwright."​

 

A western movie I have to watch every time it's on TCM, a guilty pleasure is Westward the Women. I can't help it.

 

Wow,Mike Landon had a habit of running folks off the-Pondarosa,I remember that episode and Barry Cole but didn't know that he was going to stay,two years later Mike didn't want the cool-Guy Williams either[Will Cartwright]..Little Joe was a spoiled brat,hehehehe!!