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Date Posted: 20:05:21 06/19/12 Tue
Author: SWC
Subject: The Glory Era: 1961-64

1961-64

So many westerns had been thrown together and tossed onto the schedule in the late 50’s, most of them lasting no more than a seasons or even a few episodes, that the pace simply had to slow down and only seven westerns were introduced between 1961 and 1964 before there was a revival in the mid-60’s. There was no shortage of westerns on TV during this period. It was just that they stuck with the ones that had proven to be success, like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel and the Rifleman, among others. Here are the few attempts to add to the list in 61-64, two of which made it big.

WHISPERING SMITH

Based on a 1948 Alan Ladd movie, this Mr. Smith was a railroad detective, just as Dale Robertson was on “Tales of Wells Fargo”, but one interested in modern detective methods, making him a forerunner of Heck Ramsey: Alan Pinkerton was thought to be an inspiration). Audie Murphy was hired to play him. Unfortunately, everything went wrong with the show. It was Murphy’s first TV series and he complained about how everything was done. Co-star Guy Mitchell, (“George”) fell from his horse and broke his shoulder. Another regular, Sam Buffington, (“Chief”), committed suicide. But the big problem was Congress, which as holding hearings on TV violence and screened an episode of this show called “The Grudge” and panned it. The show just sort of petered out after one season.

The episodes were actually filmed in 1959, which explains why Paul Percini, (soon to be Elliot Ness’s second banana), was available to play a guy who stands up to the Mafia, (yes, the Mafia), in Denver in this episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F34HLafPitE


GUNSLINGER

Tony Young was “Cord”, a gunslinger working undercover for the commander of a local army fort in this short-lived (12 episodes) show. Good-looking but somewhat lean and even gaunt but intimidating, some people see the genesis of Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” in his performance. Frankly, to me, he looks more like Lurch from the Adams Family.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tony+young+gunslinger+images&qpvt=tony+young+gunslinger+images&FORM=IGRE

Frankie Laine sang the theme as he did for so many western shows and movies of the time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jGoriL5NL4


THE VIRGINIAN

This was the show that had the greatest success of any other in this period, going on for 9 years, a longer run than any other western except Gunsmoke and Bonanza. Like Bonanza, it was in color with movie-level production values. Unlike Bonanza, it also had movie length, being television’s first 90 minute series, quite a challenge when you are trying to put out a show a week.

The show was based on Owen Wister’s 1902 novel about the relationship between a “tenderfoot” and a man known only as The Virginian, (in the West, your past was considered a matter of your personal privacy and your name was a keyhole into it so it was not unusual for cowboys to have nicknames that became their given name), who became his mentor. The unnamed tenderfoot watched as The Virginian, “an aristocrat of the West” dealt with various situations, including an ongoing feud with another cowboy named Trampas. The book is considered the first real western novel, (as opposed to the dime novels that proceeded it) and lead to the genre of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour.

In 1929 this story was chosen for the first sound western, which was also Gary Cooper’s first sound film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFJdbqYiTc
U-Tube doesn’t have the entire film but it does have the entirety of a radio version done some years later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8TQaiQ468w

James Drury played a dandified Virginian in a 1958 episode of “Conflict”, which served as the pilot for the rather different TV show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGfPfcX1Mgw
(unfortunately, this is just the opening)


When they finally put the show together Drury had become the tough but fair ranch foreman of the novel and “Trampas” became the tenderfoot. The novel was supposed to have taken place at the turn of the century, with The Virginian as an “old school” guy trying to deal with the changes the new century brought. In an early episode the young men of the Shiloh Ranch, including The Virginian, go off to join Teddy Roosevelt’s rough riders in Cuba during the 1898 Spanish-American War. Over the years, references to the show describe it as taking place earlier and earlier, back to the 1870’s. Then, in it’s final season, it was re-named “The Men From Shiloh”, with an announcement that they were now moving the show forward to become a turn-of the century western. They’d forgotten that that was what it was supposed to be all along.

U-Tube has the premiere but it’s in German:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlzzf6P3ag

This one clip has a fight between guest star Hugh O’Brien, (fresh from playing Wyatt Earp for six years) and Drury, one of the better fight sequences you’ll see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hxNcKKRXFU

One of the greatest episodes I’ve ever seen of any TV show is the 10th episode of “The Virginian”, entitled simply “West”. Young Trampas isn’t sure he likes working under the hard discipline of The Virginian and when some old pals show up, (Claude Akins, Steve Cochran and James Brown-not the football player but the lieutenant from “Rin Tin Tin”), they convince him to live the wild and free life of the Old West. They get involved in various comical scrapes but the feeling grows in Trampas that you can’t really live like this any more, ignoring laws, trampling through people’s lives and not taking responsibility for your actions. Eventually, the web of reality closes on Trampas and his friends and the episodes ends tragically with their deaths. Trampas escapes and is satisfied to return to the Shiloh ranch, a sadder but more mature young man, willing to put something into life to get something out of it. U-Tube has a brief clip of this episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSYveXI7cCA
It reminded me of the relationship between Prince Hall and Falstaff and his companions in Shakespeare: a young man who enjoys his friends but realizes he must progress beyond them.

My favorite aspect of the show was it’s score by Percy Faith. It think it’s the outstanding piece of music ever composed for a TV western, possibly for any TV series. The one problem is that it seems to suggest a story about a legendary character who was on the move all the time, not a down-to-earth character who stayed in the same place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWet2qgieVc
The ride-in concept is similar to Bonanza’s original opening credits and also that of Laramie. Here’s a better orchestration of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=PcEuXif5NLM&NR=1
There’s even some lyrics, which I had never heard before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhaW_1wt8E8
Notice it’s about someone who’s “gotta move”.

EMPIRE

This was sort of “Dallas” without the soap opera aspects. It was probably inspired by two 1950’s films about the oil business, “Giant” and “Written on the Wind” as well as the success of ranching TV shows such as “Bonanza” and “The Virginian“. It concentrated on the challenges of running a large business based on oil, ranching and mining and starred Richard Egan as the hard-driving manager of the enterprise and a very young Ryan O’Neal as the son of the recently deceased owner of the ranch. His mother was now head of the family and he’s trying to be the man of the family. Charles Bronson was one of their best employees. Sexy Terry Moore was Ryan’s sister. The show was revamped after it’s first season and simply called “Redigo”, after the name of Egan’s character. I’ve always thought that modern westerns combine the same sort of stories that could be told on historical westerns with modern stories that couldn’t but for some reason they rarely seem to catch on with the public, “Dallas” being a rare exception. Frankly, this series looks more interesting to me.

Here is the beginning of an episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlCKX1nb2Tw


STONEY BURKE

This was an interesting show, a modern western with an element of Route 66 to it. Instead of two guys in a corvette, it was a bronco rider going around the country performing in rodeos. He was played by Jack Lord in the one show he starred in before “Hawaii Five-0”. He based his characterization in this show on Gary Cooper. He’d been in a couple of Cooper’s films: “The Court Marshal of Billy Mitchell” and “Man of the West“. Lord still has a lot of New York City in him: he’s never quite as laid back as he’s trying to be. But the stories are pretty good and the cast was excellent. Besides Lord there was Bruce Dern as a cowboy friend and Warren Oates playing a character somewhat similar to Stuart Margolin’s “Angel” on the much later Rockford files. The episode below also has Edgar Buchanan and Leonard Nimoy. Lord almost became Captain Kirk after Jeffrey Hunter bowed out, (he’s also been up for Elliot Ness, a similar show to Hawaii Five-0 in some ways but in a very different setting), but he wanted to own a piece of the show. He later got the deal he wanted and became Steve McGarrett in our minds forever. But before that, he was, briefly, Stoney Burke.

Here is the beginning of the premiere:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdez1TXQS2g&feature=related

And here is a full episode in multiple parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkLNcxKZR7g
It’s interesting to see Jack having trouble with the cops.

THE DAKOTAS

This was Warner’s last attempt at a TV western. Larry Ward and group of deputies tried to bring law and order to the Dakota territory. A young Chad Everett was one of them. Jack Elam, in a rare good guys role, (all in black, no less), was another. Someone named Michael Greene was a third. There had been a pilot on Cheyenne named “A Man Named Ragan”, Ward’s character being Marshal Frank Ragan.

Here is the opening of one episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU2VrqFDQ9Y
This episode, in fact resulted in the cancellation of the series as the bad guy was eventually cornered and shot to death at the altar of a church, producing many viewer complaints. The show only lasted 19 episodes. That was the end of the Warner Brother’s Westerns, which had begun eight years before with Cheyenne.


DANIEL BOONE

As interest in traditional westerns, (at least new ones) was waning, along came a sort of “eastern western”, called Daniel Boone. For years there had been talk of a weekly “Davy Crockett” series starting Fess Parker after his success in several episodes of “Disneyland” a decade before. But Disney owned the TV rights to stories about Crockett, (one wonders how he achieved a monopoly on an historical character), and refused to allow the series to be made. So they created a series about Daniel Boone, (1734-1820), instead, even putting a coonskin cap on him, (which he didn’t wear in life). Parker played him pretty much the way he played Davy. The stories were all over the place, taking place from as early as the French and Indian War, (1756-1763), and as late as the War of 1812, (1812-1814), even though “ol’ Danel”, (as his friend pronounced it), always seemed to be the same age. If they’d pushed it forward a bit, maybe he could have met Davy Crockett, (1786-1836).

The show had a catchy theme song- another one of those I found I could humm years later. It went on for 6 years and 170 episodes through all the “modern” shows of the later 60’s, like Bewitched, Star Trek and Laugh-In, becoming the victim, as most of the westerns and rural comedies of the time were, more of demographics than overall ratings.

Today the show is remembered not for one of it‘s episodes but for a guest appearance by Ed Ames, who played “Mingo“ an Oxford educated Indian friend of “Danel’s“, on the Johnny Carson show:
http://www.popmodal.com/video/9423/Carson-Ed-Ames-Throws-Tomahawk

People remember this show as being a color show but it’s first season was in black and white:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18J_fjEX3x0

Here’s a last-season episode, (second-to-last, actually), with a very young “Jodi Foster“:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NM0UkTuYsI&feature=related

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Replies:

[> Re: The Glory Era: 1961-64 -- Richard, 08:50:37 06/20/12 Wed [1]

Regarding the time-frame of The Virginian, it was sometimes unclear whether it was set in the 1870's or at the turn of the century. But that Rough Riders (Teddy Roosevelt) episode set in Cuba sets it in the late 1890's.

And there was an episode where a very old version of a telephone is shown in an episode taking place in a large city.


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[> Re: The Glory Era: 1961-64 (Davy Crockett "exclusive") -- Joe H., 08:58:23 06/20/12 Wed [1]

Thanks SWC, and especially for:

"But Disney owned the TV rights to stories about Crockett, (one wonders how he achieved a monopoly on an historical character), and refused to allow the series to be made. So they created a series about Daniel Boone, (1734-1820), instead, even putting a coonskin cap on him, (which he didn�t wear in life). "

And in trying to find a story on this, I did find this merchandising non-exclusive over at: http://www.jfredmacdonald.com/wsts/crockett.htm of: "Since Disney did not have exclusive control of the historic name and likeness of Crockett—as William Boyd and the estate of author Clarence E. Mulford possessed title to everything associated with Hopalong Cassidy—in short order there were an estimated 3,000 different Davy Crockett products for sale. From bath towels and plastic ice cream cone holders, to ukeleles, underwear, and wristwatches. Davy's name or familiar representation in fringed leather clothing and raccoon-skin cap triggered a consumerist binge.

The fad flourished about seven months, abating only when, as sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld reported at the time, "almost every child has his cap, rifle, powderhorn, book and record." Thus, when Dis­neyland offered two new Crockett TV films in late 1955—Davy Crockett's Keelboat Race (November 16), and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (December 14)—millions watched but few were anxious to resume the merchandising mania."

- - Joe


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[> Re: The Glory Era: 1961-64 -- Richard, 13:04:20 06/20/12 Wed [1]

One interesting aspect of "The Virginian" is to watch how the dialogue is set up so that no one tries to call The Virginian by name, or needs to refer to him by name.

Once in a while they refer to him as "The Virginian," but everyone seems content to just refer to him as the Shiloh ranch foreman.


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