With the fall 2018 season, and new and returning shows nearly upon us, I took a weekend to watch some older shows. And I've been keeping up on Have Gun, Will Travel for a long time, both on my local library's DVDs and the retrochannel MeTV running it on Saturday mornings.
A bit of background: Have Gun, Will Travel started as a Western TV show, back in the day. Created by Herb Meadow and Sam Rolfe in 1957, it starred actor Richard Boone as Paladin. "Paladin" is the alias of an unnamed West Point graduate who fought with the Union during the Civil War. The show itself took place in the post-Civil War era common to a lot of radio and TV Westerns. An expert military tactician, brawler, and gunfighter, Paladin typically relied on his wits rather than his fists and his guns. If he could bring two parties together, Paladin would do so rather than just shoot one side or the other dead.
The show then spawned a radio show of the same name, starting in 1958 a year later. That starred veteran actor John Dehner as Paladin.
Unlike many radio and TV cowboy types, Paladin lived pretty high on the hog. He typically charged $1,000 for his services, but that was just his standard asking price. If he thought a client could pay more, he'd charge them more. If they were poor, he'd charge them less. Sometimes he'd take his fee in service: wine, tailored suits, and so on. One suspects that someone at the Hotel Carlton owed him a favor, which is why Paladin had a suite there and used it as his base of operations.
After five seasons, the show ended in 1963. The radio showed had already aired three years previously in 1960. Paladin's real name is never revealed, although he gets an origin of sorts in the fifth season episode "Genesis" when it is revealed that an older gunfighter named Smoke (also played by Richard Boone) taught a young dandy the basics of gunfighting. When Smoke dies, the dandy dons Smoke's all-black gunfighting outfit and takes the name "Paladin" after a nickname that Smoke gave him.
Have Gun featured the talents of many writers who would move onto other shows in the 60s. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry did 24 episodes, as did Trek crew Gene L. Coon, Fred Freiberger, and Samuel A. Peeples. Bruce Geller (Mission: Impossible) and Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch), also wrote episodes.
Other writers including Twilight Zone vets Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont also got into the act. Have Gun was considered a more sophisticated version of the early 60s Westerns. Most of those shows were basic Old West shoot-em-ups. Have Gun was never heavy on the gunplay, often did comedy episodes, and dabbled in existential and nihilistic stories. Some of them directed by Richard Boone himself. And all of which brings us to today's two episodes.
"The Ledge" has no gunplay and no man-made violence. Paladin is traveling through the mountains and meets four men: Dr. Stark, Corey, Stebbins, and Cass Richards. A fifth man coming toward them is caught in a rock fall and lands on a ledge below them. He's unconscious, possibly dead, and the episode looks at each of the five other men and their decisions as to whether to abandon him or try to rescue him at the possible cost of their own lives.
Paladin is of course determined to go down and save the guy. The young Corey suffers from acrophobia--fear of heights--and considers himself a coward. Stark and Stebbins are older men and rationalize not going down so Stark can tend to sick people that need him and Stebbins can support his family. Cass is a cowpoke who spends most of his time laughing at the others for their supposed cowardice but equally derides Paladin as a fool trying to save a dead man.
The five men argue back and forth, and it gets a bit tedious. They make a couple of attempts to lower one of them down on a rope, but it'll take all five of them to extend the rope far enough to reach the ledge. Corey can't bring himself to make the climb, but eventually allows himself to be blindfolded. When Corey challenges Cass' courage, Cass gets all offended and they fight, and then Cass agrees to help just to prove that he's not a coward.
In the end, they discover the unnamed man is dead, and has been dead since he fell. Even Paladin concedes that it was a foolish risk to try and save him, and the episode ends with Cass' laughter echoing out over the mountains.
"The Ledge" is an odd episode, even by Have Gun standards. Paladin is the upholder of truth and justice, but the ending undermines his viewpoint. By establishing the man's death at the end, the episode basically shows that Stark and Stebbins were right and they shouldn't have risked their lives to save a dead man. "The Ledge" is also timeless: it could be any five guys stuck anywhere with a sixth man's life hanging in the balance. It also doesn't go anywhere or tell us anything new. We already know Paladin is going to do the right thing. We don't know or care about the other four guys, who never appear anywhere again. It's just a slice of nihilism that happens on Paladin's way to somewhere else. It's a story about five guys and how each of them react differently to a life-and-death situation.
In 2018 it'd probably be hailed as a classic if some TV show did it. Back in early 1960 when it aired, it was just another episode of another TV Western. But "The Ledge" is surprisingly different in 1960 and 2018.
The second episode,"Lady on the Wall", is written by the aforementioned Twilight Zone team of Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Matheson (who passed away in 2013) is best known as a horror, s.f., fantasy, and mystery writer. He wrote for Trek, did the screenplay of the original Night Stalker movie, and wrote the short stories that were eventually adapted into the 1975 TV movie Trilogy of Terror. But Matheson also did Westerns in the 1960s.
Beaumont was also a fantasist writer, and besides Twilight Zone did screenplays for such movies as The Masque of the Red Death and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. He passed away in 1967 at the age of 37, although he was described as looking in his 90s. Beaumont suffered from what some have described as premature Alzheimer's Disease, Pick's Disease, or a combination of both. The condition was untreatable, and other writers often ghostwrote for him without credit.
Beaumont and Matheson come together for "Lady", which has Paladin riding into a ghost town where apparently only five men and one woman live. One of the men is the saloon keeper Jack, and the other four men are old-timey miners who spend their days staring at a painting of a beautiful young woman, Annie, that is mounted on the saloon wall. The woman is the hotel's elderly maid, Juanita.
Another man, Armand Boucher, is staying at the hotel and offers to buy the painting for $500. It disappears, and the four old men suspect Paladin stole it. He didn't, and offers his services to help them recover it. Jack eventually reveals he took the painting and destroyed the frame. It's never clear why Paladin suspects him, but Paladin is onto him from the beginning of the investigation.
It turns out the painting is a rare work by Sutrell, and Juanita was the subject when she was much much younger. She gave it to Jack's father to pay for Sutrell's hotel tab, and the painting is worth $50,000 and Boucher is running a scam. Jack gives it back to Juanita, and she refuses to sell it insisting she has all of the immortality she wants because of the four old men looking at it with such reverence. At the end, they share a toast to Juanita and Annie, and Paladin gently toasts Annie. Paladin is a typical ladies' man throughout the series, but he's just as capable of appreciating the beauty in the elderly Juanita as in the often-nameless women he hangs out with at the Carlton.
"Lady" has no real violence other than a brief struggle between Paladin and Jack. There are a number of comedies throughout Have Gun, some written by Gene Roddenberry when he's having some woman act "unwomanly". Matheson and Beaumont bring a different type of humor, however. Paladins is more bemused by the old men then threatened by them. Especially when they barge into his hotel room and hold him at gunpoint, and he casually takes away their guns. They refuse to back down, insisting they'll hold Paladin responsible if the painting isn't recovered. Actor Richard Boone always does a great job of juggling Paladin's ruthlessness, civility, and comedy.
So if you're looking for a Western to watch, you could do worse than Have Gun and the late 50s/early 60s in general. Yancy Derringer is another non-Western Western and hails from the same period. With both shows, if you're looking for comedy and drama and Western adventure, you'll usually get all three. And if one episode doesn't have it, wait a week or two and you'll get it.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Written by Gislef on Oct 7, 2018
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