Have Gun Will Travel - The Complete First Season

Have Gun Will Travel - The Complete First Season
by Paul Stanley, Lewis Milestone, Ida Lupino, Gary Nelson, Andrew V. McLaglen

Have Gun Will Travel - The Complete First Season
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DVD Cover Information

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen, Gary Nelson, Ida Lupino, Lewis Milestone, Paul Stanley
Brand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Box set, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1009 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-05-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Paramount

Movie Reviews of Have Gun Will Travel - The Complete First Season

Movie Review: Sir Richard Boone
Summary: 5 Stars

I hadn't seen one of these since my boyhood in the 50s and 60s. I remember waiting anxiously for the original episodes on the same day and time each week, but I didn't exactly recall why I liked it so much.

It's all Richard Boone. The show is not especially well written, although the music is pretty good and premise is great--a rich, San Francisco dandy/black dressed lethal gunfighter who quotes literature and always does the right thing. But Boone is what makes it work. Even in these relatively primitive productions in the late 50s, he just shines as an actor, far and away the best and most appealing in that genre. He has perfect pitch for the role.

Summary of Have Gun Will Travel - The Complete First Season

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/23/2006 Rating: Nr
The first season of Have Gun--Will Travel makes it easy to see why this Western series was an overnight success. Making its debut on September 14, 1957, the half-hour show ranked no. 4 in the ratings for its entire first season, which ran almost completely uninterrupted (minus a one-week preemption) until June of 1958--a punishing schedule unheard of in present-day television. (It ranked even higher in subsequent seasons, holding the no. 3 spot, behind Gunsmoke and Wagon Train.) Richard Boone was perfectly cast in the lead role of Paladin, a cultured gunslinger whose West Point education, impeccable style, literate sophistication, and distinguished Civil War service made him unique among Western heroes, and the prototype for many dashing figures to follow. Based in San Francisco's ritzy Carlton Hotel, he scans newspapers to locate trouble throughout the wild West, then cagily markets his services (via his legendary calling card, "Have Gun--Will Travel") as a hired gun, moral arbiter, voice of reason, and reluctant killer of badmen. Understanding the complexities of frontier justice, Paladin (whose full name is never revealed) could turn on those who hired him if he suspected dubious motivations. He wore black, but he traveled in an ethical gray zone.

Running about 25 minutes each, these 39 episodes are consistently good and economically plotted, since Have Gun boasted stellar talent on both sides of the camera. Each episode began with the memorable theme by legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann, and most of the first season was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, who worked regularly on Gunsmoke, Rawhide, and Perry Mason before graduating to a prolific big-screen career. Regular writers included Gene Roddenberry (who created Star Trek six years later), and budding maverick Sam Peckinpah co-wrote episode #22, "The Singer." In addition to series regular Kam Tong as Paladin's Chinese-American manservant Hey Boy (a "Coolie" stereotype, but Tong handles it with dignity, especially in "Hey Boy's Revenge"), Have Gun offered a who's-who of 1950s and '60s guest stars, from genre stalwarts like Victor McLaglen (Andrew's father), John Carradine, Strother Martin, and R.G. Armstrong, to promising newcomers like Angie Dickinson, Warren Oates, and Charles Bronson (the last starring in "The Outlaw," one of the season's finest episodes). Each episode is accompanied by background information and guest-star profiles, and while picture quality is quite good overall, the audio quality suffers from a low-level mix with noticeable hiss from aged source materials. Fortunately, this won't prevent anyone from enjoying a first-rate TV series that thrived for another five seasons, until cancellation in 1963. --Jeff Shannon

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