Have Gun – Will Travel is one of those tv shows that were a little before my time. I often saw it referred to, but had never seen the actual show.
I just watched the first seven episodes on DVD from Netflix. For a 50-year-old show, it holds up amazingly well. Paladin is a fascinating character. I liked Richard Boone in movies when he was much older, but had never seen him so young, playing such a sophisticated character.
In fact, almost all the characters are complicated and well-drawn, and seldom just stereotypes. (Okay, maybe the Chinese bellboy named Hey Boy.) The writing is sharp and assumes the audience is intelligent and paying attention; some of the dialogue is excellent.
Great cast of guest actors. In just the first few episodes, there’s Jack Lord, Charles Bronson, Angie Dickinson, Mike Connors – all very young, as well as plenty of fine character actors.
Makes me want to get a custom-made single-action Colt .45 with a rifled barrel and take up residence in a swanky San Francisco hotel. (And I’d like to know what Paladin is always whispering to those fancy prostitute ladies to make them laugh.)
I reckon you can see six full episodes on imdb: LINK They’re complete with the original breaks for commercial advertisement, helpfully filled in by the sponsor, Target (I presume, as so far I’ve only watched the first video).
Great show. Solid, if now predictable writing, and well considered performances. I think the show holds up fairly well. The half hour format would be unusual for a drama today, but it forced some tightness to the scripts and, as the OP observes, some assumptions regarding the intelligence of the viewer that allowed the writers to move on with the story without wasting time connecting dots.
This is going on my Netflix queue. It was on right before Gunsmoke on Saturday nights, and I watched it faithfully as a kid. I thought it very cool that the action started in a hotel, and like many thought his first name was Paladin.
I’m surprised that nobody mentioned that Gene Roddenberry wrote for this show.
It was one of the programs that my family watched regularly. It should be noted that the show had some wonderful directors too. For instance, Ida Lapino was a regular director for the show.
It’s a nice conceit but I’m curious to know how this worked in practice.
Let’s imagine I live somewhere out of town, or even in a different state. I have a problem which I think Paladin could help with. I have his card about my person. I go to the nearest wire office to send him a message. The wire operator has only ‘Paladin, San Francisco’ to work with.
Where does the operator send the message and what happens at the SF end to ensure Paladin gets it?
To the wireless office in San Francisco obviously. They were the ones that had to know who Paladin was. Just like in the early days of the telephone, you asked the operator to connect you to whoever.
It kind of goes without saying that Paladin had gone to the wireless office in SF and introduced himself, and told them where he could be reached if and when a wire came in. Not 'zactly brain science.
Thanks for that CBS Link above. I have been watching a couple of these every day. Wow! these are so much better than what passes for drama on TV nowadays.
In the 19th century, give the way a telegraph worked, I would think so. I wouldn’t think there would be switch boards and stuff, just a pair of wires next to the railroad.
Here’s a great site for all things HGWT. I posted it in another HGWT thread a few years ago and I’m glad to see it’s still around.
“Quotes from a Renaissance Man” will bring up short sound clips. My favorite:
"“You don’t have to be afraid, boy…(to a young boy whose father didn’t want him going to school) he won’t use that gun. Because he didn’t go to the school I did. That’s the school where they teach you how to kill a man before he can get his gun out of the holster.”
