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Westerns
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 10:17 am    Post subject: Westerns Reply with quote

As big a fan of scifi, I'm also a huge fan of westerns.

Fav western TV series: Laredo (1965-'67) & The High Chaparral (1967-'71).

Laredo was a mix of both action & humor, rare for a western to include humor on a weekly basis.

The series was about Texas Ranger Company B. The cast was terrific. Classic character actor Neville Brand was bellowing, rough, uncouth Reese Bennett. Peter Brown was quick draw, slick, lady's man Chad Cooper. William Smith was rugged, knife thrower Joe Riley.

Company Commander was Captain Phillip Parmalee. A no nonsense, intelligent leader.

In the second season of the show Erik Hunter (Robert Wolders) joined the cast. Erik was sophisticated, worldly, & Chad's equal with romancing the gals. He also wore the most colorful outfits ever seen on a western up until then, or since.

Fun show & great chemistry & laughs, along with adventure, made Laredo a terrific western.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Right ya are, pardner! Them Westerns in the 1950s and 1960s were a rootin' tootin' good time, yessiree!

I reckon my favorite would be The Rifeman, with Chuck Conners showin' them sissified gunslingers that they couldn't even clear leather before he whippped off six shots from his custom built Winchester Model 1892 rifle.





The closest that Chuck ever came to romance in the show was with Miss Joan Taylor, the heroine from both Earth vs the Flying Saucers and 20 Million Miles to Earth.

And Chuck's on-screen son was Johnny Crawford, who co-starred in my favorite sci-fi movie, The Space Children in 1958.




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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Peter Brown (Laredo) was known as one of the real life fastest draws. On the opening credits of Laredo, second season, you can see how he could also handle a six-shooter by twirling it all around.

Glenn Ford was also supposed to be one of the fastest draws, too.

Loved The High Chaparral. Great cast!

One of its high points was that unlike 99% of the TV westerns,THC wasn't shot entirely in Hollywood. It was filmed in Tuscon, AZ.

This gave it a fresh look with its scenery & vistas compared to the California look & backlots.
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 1:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What was even more sci-fi-ish about TV westerns of the '60s was their foray into unusual weapons, The Rifleman being one of the earliest.

Another trendsetter was Wanted: Dead or Alive. Bounty hunter Josh Randall (Steve McQueen) toted an extremely sawed off Winchester 73 worn as a sidearm.

The Restless Gun (John Payne) had a conventional-looking six-gun with attachable barrel extension and shoulder stock.

Johnny Ringo's (Don Durant) six-gun sported a small under-barrel shotgun for those occasions when the bad guys were counting his bullets. (From IMDb, the gun was a LeMat that actually fired ten rounds, rather than the seven depicted in the series. See http://www.horstheld.com/0-Lemat.htm )

Have Gun - Will Travel in its later years saw Paladin (Richard Boone) employing a number of different weapons as opportunity presented itself or demanded. I recall seeing him armed with an atl-atl in one episode.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Glenn Ford was also supposed to be one of the fastest draws, too.

Hey, didn't Ford star in a movie called The Fastest Gun Alive, about a man trying to hide from his fast-gun reputation in a small town, but his secret got out and he had to take desperate measures to deal with his predicament?
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 3:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Glenn did star in TFGA. Durn good oater.

Orzel-w, I'd add Johnny Yuma's modified rifle from The Rebel to a list of unusual weapons. Seemed awfully similar to Josh Randell's rifle on Wanted:Dead or Alive.

Yancy Derringer carried a derringer inside his hat.

Can't forget Jim West's sleeve gun from The Wild,Wild West. However, that series was as much scifi as western & spy.

In the revived TV series Bret Maverick with the terrific Jim Garner there's a hilarious scene in the pilot.
Bret has shown up for a high, high stakes poker game in an Arizona town. The sheriff doesn't want any trouble from the gamblers & strictly enforces a no gun policy in the saloon where the game will take place.

There's a fun scene as the sheriff locates every weapon that Bret has on him. They appear to be accurate weapons of that era.
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Found a website with this picture and this caption.
_____________________________________________



If these aren't rare, then I don't know Cap Guns at all. The two Johnny Yuma Rebel (from the TV Show) scatterguns on the top are Classy and the one underneath is by Marx with the original tag showing designer was Roy Ahlgreen, along with its bear claw necklace & Rebel hat.
___________________________________________

It confirmed by recollection that Mr. Yuma's weapon was a sawed-off shotgun -- which strikes me as a firearm that could easily hit the broad side of a barn -- and the outhouse way off to the left, too.

The only way you could miss with this gun was to not load it . . .

I also found this picture of Steve McQueen's weapon-of-choice, which had a cocking lever similar to Mr. Connor's handy rifle.





And this is what he carried it in, which explains why Steve often said, "No thanks, I'd rather stand," when asked to sit down.





Jim West, on the other hand (no pun intended) might have felt nervous about shaking hands with a thing like this up his sleeve.





I wonder if that every actually happened in the series. The villain makes a promise that Jim West knows he won't keep, and West says, "Give me your word on that," as he holds out his right hand.

Bang. One gut-shot bad guy.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:


I wonder if that every actually happened in the series. The villain makes a promise that Jim West knows he won't keep, and West says, "Give me your word on that," as he holds out his right hand.

Bang. One gut-shot bad guy
.

Bud, is that shot from the show? The reason I ask, is because in one episode they showed West, shirtless for the Ladies, testing the device. It was a leather forearm covering, with a rail system. There was a lever that stretched back to his elbow. To activate the sleeve device, West would just press his elbow into his body. Up until a few years ago, the creator was selling reproductions, but he retired.

There was a malfunctioning sleeve device in the Western comedy, "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw". The joke, was that it would accidently pop out, but always at the moment it was needed, even though the owner didn't realize it was needed.

orzel-w, Johnny Ringo's LeMat was rebuilt for the show so it would use .45LC blanks, rather than it's original .44 black powder charges. Back in the late 1800s, it was quite common to convert black Power guns to use cartridges. You just didn't get rid of a perfectly good weapon, they were expensive. This was shown off to good advantage in "Pale Rider". It is still being done to black powder replicas today for the Old West reenactors.

At my house we watched practically every Western, my Dad loved them. So do I.

No love for "Gunsmoke"? If you ever get the chance watch the early B&W episodes, they were hardcore.

David.
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 5:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
And this is what he carried it in, which explains why Steve often said, "No thanks, I'd rather stand," when asked to sit down.

Howzat?

Krel wrote:
Johnny Ringo's LeMat was rebuilt for the show so it would use .45LC blanks, rather than it's original .44 black powder charges.

That must have been the "customized" reference in the IMDb description.

Apparently the LeMat 10-rounders were better known back in the Old West. If so, the old cliche of counting off six shots fired and jumping out from cover, yelling, "He's out of bullets! Let's get 'em, boys!" would have been a fool's game.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

orzel-w wrote:
Bud Brewster wrote:
And this is what he carried it in, which explains why Steve often said, "No thanks, I'd rather stand," when asked to sit down.

Howzat?

A joke. The gun looks so long that when he tied it to his leg, his leg wouldn't bend. Very Happy

Note to Krel: The site that had the picture of the sleeve gun indicated it was from The Wild Wild West, but it may not actually be from the show. Use a Google image search to find my source and take a look at what they say about it.

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
orzel-w wrote:
Bud Brewster wrote:
And this is what he carried it in, which explains why Steve often said, "No thanks, I'd rather stand," when asked to sit down.

Howzat?

A joke. The gun looks so long that when he tied it to his leg, his leg wouldn't bend. Very Happy

What I'm questioning is "And this is what he carried it in...".

"This" what?
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 9:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh! You meant, "Did you leave out a jpeg by mistake, Bud?"

Silly me.

Actually, just "This what?" would have been good enough. But next time you say "Howzat?" I'll know exactly what you mean.

Scroll back up and you'll see the "zat" that was the "how". Very Happy
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud I couldn't find a source. But the way it is photographed, and the color, lead me to believe that the photo is from "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw". The sleeve device in the movie was suppose to be a scissors type of extension. I can't be positive, as I haven't seen the movie in decades.

This is suppose to be the sleeve device from TWWW, but it is incomplete: http://s559.photobucket.com/user/Flyingmonkeys_2009/media/sleeve_gun_device.jpg.html

"Wanted: Dead or Alive" had something in common with "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.". Both productions got in trouble with Uncle Sam and had to pay heavy fines for manufacturing firearms. In WDOA, it was for manufacturing Short barrel rifles. A no-no due to the Gun Control Act of 1936. Josh Randel's Mare's Leg had two different kind of cocking levers, although I don't ever remember seeing it twirl cocked in the show.

"Have Gun - Will Travel" was a great show. Paladin had his gimmicks. His six gun was suppose to be a custom handmade weapon. He kept a derringer behind his holster belt buckle, and he had a special, short rifle. I once read that they never ventured further than six miles from the studio for location work, that is how undeveloped the land was back then.

On "Laredo", they brought in a new member in the second season because they were having trouble with Neville Brand. Because of his war experiences, he had a very bad drinking problem, which I believe he got control of later in his life.

The thing about "The Rifleman" was that North Fork had to be the most progressive town ever, everyone was welcome. Also there were episodes where McCain was dead wrong about things, and had to have it pointed out to him. A very gutsy way to portray the lead character back then. I remember one episode where an old man, just out of the territorial prison, armed with a 10 gauge shotgun came into town for revenge. You find out at the end that he was a young man. The conditions in the prison were so bad, it aged him horribly.

Michael Landon used to tell a story about Chuck Connors, with whom he was good friends. ML was the Leader of his son's Cub Scout Troop. "The Rifleman" was the hot show at the time, so he asked CC if he would give a demonstration with the rifle, and CC agreed. Michael Landon introduced Chuck Connors, but he didn't appear, so he went to see what was wrong. He saw CC sitting with the rifle and ammo, looking lost. He didn't know how to load the rifle! Michael Landon couldn't believe it. Here was a man that could make the rifle practically sing and dance, but they had never shown him how to load it! The show's armorer had always loaded the rifle for him. So ML showed him how to load the rifle, and the show went on, the kids were happy.

Back in the 50s, there was a big quick draw fad in Hollywood. A popular game was to hold your gun arm straight out in front of you. You were then suppose to draw and hit the can before it dropped below the level of your gun belt. Supposedly the fastest draw in Hollywood was Jerry Lewis, followed by Buddy Hackett, who was also a great trick shot artist.

Robert Culp did "Trackdown", where he used a S&W Schofield revolver, just to be different. His advice on learning to fast draw? Stand beside your bed, with the gun on the bed side. Because while practicing, you are going to drop your gun...A LOT! Laughing

David.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Neville Brand was a highly decorated soldier of WWII.
Sadly he did have a drinking problem & it affected his working situation at times on Laredo.

However, he was a superb actor & he brought lots of humor & character to his role on the show. It wouldn't have been as good a series without him.

An episode of Robert Culp's Trackdown served as the backdoor pilot for Wanted: Dead or Alive.

Guy Williams starred on Bonanza for a handful of episodes as cousin Will Cartwright. Guy said that it was one of his most unpleasant career experiences.

The cast was not particularly welcoming to him. Pernell Roberts (Adam) was considering leaving Bonanza at the time. So there was tension on the set. Cousin Will was brought in as a possible replacement in case Roberts left.

Mike Landon did not want Williams around. Guy was taller & just as good looking as Landon. Landon did not want that kind of competition. Guy was only too happy when his time on the show was over & he could move on.

On an episode of Maverick they have a little fun with another western TV show.

Bart (Jack Kelly) is talking to someone & they refer to a table with some guns on it. One of them is either Mare's Leg from Wanted: Dead or Alive, or the rifle used on The Rebel. I don't recall which weapon it was exactly.

The gent showing Bart the weapon says that it was used "By a little guy."Wink,wink. Both Steve McQueen & Nick Adams were somewhat short & slight in their builds.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No matter what his personal problems were, I have never seen a bad performance from Neville Brand.

Pow wrote:
Mike Landon did not want Williams around.Guy was taller & just as good looking as Landon.Landon did not want that kind of competition.

That is funny, because Michael Landon was the shortest member of the cast. I saw him once on the Tonight show, and he told a story about the beginning of "Bonanza". There was a battle between Loren Greene, Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker over height. They all started wearing lifts in a bid to be the tallest. As one added more lifts to their boots, the other two followed. Michael Landon said that he didn't know about lifts at the time, and he thought that he was getting shorter. Laughing

Pow wrote:
Both Steve McQueen & Nick Adams were somewhat short & slight in their builds.

Steve McQueen was like Michael Conrad, in that his lack of stature didn't bother him at all.

David.
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