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Date Posted: 21:57:14 06/10/12 Sun
Author: SWC
Subject: The Golden Era: 1960

The emphasis in the 60’s went from quantity to quality in westerns. The best of them had long, popular runs and the volume of new shows began to decline and the networks and studios were less willing to invest in a project unless a big effort was being made to make it a successful show. Only half as many new westerns came out in 1960, (7) as the year before and that would also be the total of new westerns for the following four years. Unfortunately none of them lasted very long although one of them became a kind of cult show that still has it’s adherents.

OVERLAND TRAIL

This brief, (17 episode series starred William Bendix and Doug McClure as employees of the Overland Stage Company, trying to maintain the line from the Mississippi to California. U-Tube has only the opening of one episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3qgX8RNVtY

THE WESTERNER

This is an even shorter-lived series, although a better remembered one. It’s become a “cult” show over the years, although it’s initial showing barely caused a ripple. It was created by Sam Peckinpaugh with Brian Keith as another western wanderer. He doesn’t have a special gun. He has a dog, (played by Spike, the same dog who played “Old Yeller”), and a nemesis, a con man played by John Dehner named Burgundy Smith. Kenny Rogers remembered this show, which had a strong content of gentle humor, so fondly, he brought back Keith and his dog, (another one, no doubt), for a cameo in his “The Gambler Returns” TV movie in 1991, along with the stars of shows that lasted much longer. U-Tube has nothing on the original show, which lasted only 13 episodes, except this- an attempt by Peckinpaugh to revise the show with Lee Marvin in Keith’s role, (Dave Blassingame), and Keenan Wynn as Burgundy Smith in a 1963 episode of Dick Powell Theater. This is just a brief clip of a musical sequence where Marvin and Wynn wind up singing along.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmhQIKdNOsA

TATE

Here was another gimmick series with Dave McLean playing a hero with a shattered arm from the Civil War and a great belief in the bible and his six-gun. The show is best remembered for two guest appearances by a young actor named Robert Redford. It was another 13 episode run. McLean first gained fame as “The Marlboro Man” and wound up dying of lung cancer, one of three “Marlboro Man” models to do, thus leading to the Sam Elliot character in the film “Thank You For Smoking”.
Here is the opening credit sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuE1_oUfS3A
Leonard Nimoy as a Commanche chief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9OmBF7qyw
(Robert Redford was also in this episode but is not in this clip: he played a rancher defending his place and wife from the Commanches and judging by the beginning of it, he was not successful.)

McLean as the Marlboro Man:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_itWE4VtLJt0/R-zpPkYzo-I/AAAAAAAAAFc/8S_ok_654vg/s400/david%2Bmclean.jpg

KLONDIKE

This series was basically a carbon copy of Warner Brother’s and ABC’s “The Alaskans” from the previous year. The differences? “The Alaskans had two heroes- Roger Moore and Jeff York, two villains, Ray Danton and John Dehner and one pretty girl, Dorothy province. Klondike had one hero, Ralph Taeger, one villain, James Coburn and two pretty girls, Mari Blanchard and Joi Lansing, (in an unfortunate irony, both the ladies died young of caner- Mari in 1970 at age 47, Joi in 1972 at age 43). Halfway though the season, NBC was unhappy with the ratings but noted the success Warner’s was having with their detective series in glamorous places and had both Taeger and Coburn start filing a new show, “Acapulco“, as beachcombers hired by big shot lawyer to be his bodyguards. That show got even lower ratings and lasted an even shorter period of time, (8 episodes compared to 18).

U-Tube has the beginning of a Klondike episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBMwNugAtSw


STAGECOACH WEST

And this was a carbon copy of “Overland Trail, with Robert Bray and Wayne Rogers as the veteran and young stage coach drivers. This one had a kid along for the ride, played by Richard Eyer, and a dog, (it was done by the same people who did “The Rifleman” and stuck the multi-generational formula). At least it managed to last a full 26 episodes.

U-Tube has several clips but no full episode. This one has Jack Lord:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFUMN5pMyds&feature=related
And this one James Drury- as a blind gunman!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBi2XVduG7c
The end of the show, with a look at Wayne Rogers, a dozen years before MASH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWUoolDesrk





THE TALL MAN

The longest lived new western of the 1960 season, (2 years, 75 episodes) was “The Tall” man, about Sheriff Pat Garrett, played by Barry Sullivan and Billy the Kid, played by a perfectly cast Clu Gulager, (his laconic manner fits the look of Billy in that lone photograph of him to a “T”). The series showed their relationship as that of a father figure and wayward son and Pat’s eventual killing of Billy was never depicted. U-Tube has the opening credits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeoQc41YvV0


OUTLAWS

In another twist, this series viewed each story, (at least in it’s first season), from the point of view of the guest star outlaw, who found himself in the territory of US Marshal Frank Caine, (perennial 1930’s-40’s movie bad guy Barton MacLane). After a year, this innovative format was dropped and so was MacLane, replaced by the younger and handsomer Don Collier, (who had been his deputy), with the stories being told, conventionally, from the lawman’s point of view. That didn’t help and it was cancelled after it’s 50th episode.

There’s one episode on U-Tube, in five parts, from the first season:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9zIvFxymo4
Leonard Nimoy makes an appearance here, too.


That was it for 1960 western premieres but it didn’t mean the popularity of the genre had declined. All these shows have their adherents on the IMDB and U-Tube, often describing them as being innovative and ahead of their time- maybe too far ahead. The #1 show on TV was Gunsmoke for the fourth year in a row. Wagon Train was #2, Have Gun Will Travel #3, Rawhide #6 and Bonanza #17. Fans just wanted quality shows and they were getting them.

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