Lawman (TV series)

[moira finnie]

This thread has been more entertaining to me than most of the epis of "Lawman" I've seen so far. I missed the one with Virginia Gregg...it sounds like an exception.

Moira, you have me rolling with your references to Peter Brown's astuteness. Are you saying Chester and Festus could have sold him a swamp? I guess it is a perogative that deputies have to be a smidge less sharp than their boss, though "Gunsmoke" gave the boys opportunities to break that stereotype from time to time.

Oh, wouldn't that be delightful if there could be one epi where all the sidekick/deputies storm off together after some incident with their boss makes them go off the deep end? Just based on Chester and Festus' longer and more varied life experience, I think the pair of them could easily have sold Johnny McKay the Brooklyn Bridge, a stuffed jackalope, and the map to The Lost Dutchman's mine. Then, all three Maverick boys could have gotten them into a "friendly" poker game and skinned 'em alive.

I also agree about Russell's arresting features, ha. That hair is rather mesmerizing. I can't figure it out. But with a stetson on he is mighty fine. My one feature film recollection for him is from a disturbingly sadistic scene in John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright, which vividly illustrated how much more screwed up the white folks were in that idyllic little community.

I looked around the internet and Russell is almost always wearing a hat no matter what role he played. It doesn't matter if he helped nature along, but I wish he'd had a designated "hair fluffer" on Lawman so that it wouldn't be quite so noticeable. One movie that I have seen and in which I believe we see Mr. Russell's own tonsorial splendor is Yellow Sky (1949).


If you know the movie Yellow Sky, you might remember this scene when John Russell, Harry Morgan and Richard Widmark are bellying up to the bar for a drink (in the exact same saloon that Wellman opened The Ox Bow Incident with years before ). Russell, gazing lovingly at the painting of a near naked Mazeppa on the back of a horse behind the bar, wonders aloud, "I wonder if she has any plans for later?"

My one feature film recollection for him is from a disturbingly sadistic scene in John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright, which vividly illustrated how much more screwed up the white folks were in that idyllic little community

I haven't seen The Sun Shines Bright since I was about 8 so my conscious memory of it is quite vague. Don't tell anyone, but I haven't seen every John Ford movie in existence...like some people

I like what you all bring out about the lawman's code of fairness. I ahve't seen enough of "Lawman" to say much, but I like the early episodes of "Gunsmoke" because I often see Matt struggling with the confines of the letter of the law. Yesterday, for instance, he was just busting to get Denver Pyle and his boys (who made the Clantons in My Darling Clementine seem like graduates of M.I.T.). AT one point he even yells "If I could, I'd hang you and your ape-sons from the highest tree in Kansas!" Boy, was I ever in agreement. I have noticed watching these western shows is making me more blood thirsty. During the entire show I was fervently wishing for the death of Pyle and his goon-boys. Not an acceptable development in my character.

I started to watch that Gunsmoke, but when I saw that Denver Pyle and his inbred offspring were going to be the centerpiece of that episode, I gave up. I just can't spend any more time with troubled family members (unless they are in my family), you know what I mean. I'm with Marshal Dillon's first instinct.

[ChiO]

Today I found an interesting article on Montgomery Pittman, an actor/director/writer whose writing credits include: Lawman, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Maverick, Surfside 6, 77 Sunset Strip and The Twilight Zone (he also directed episodes of some of those series). The most amusing tidbit was:

"The Ten-Point Guide to Happiness While Writing or Directing a Maverick." (drafted by Roy Huggins, Maverick's creator, producer, and sometime writer):

1. Maverick is the original disorganization man.
2. Maverick's primary motivation is that ancient and most noble of motives: the profit motive.
3. Heavies in Maverick are always absolutely right, and they are always beloved to someone.
4. The cliché always flourishes in the creative arts because the familiar gives a sense of comfort and security. Writers and directors of Maverick are requested to live dangerously.
5. Maverick's activities are seldom grandiose. To force him into magnificent speculations is to lose sight of his essential indolence.
6. The Maverick series is a regeneration story in which the regeneration has been indefinitely postponed.
7. Maverick's travels are never aimless; he always has an object in view; his pocket and yours. However, there are times when he is merely fleeing from heroic enterprise.
8. In the traditional Western story, the situation is always serious, but never hopeless. In a Maverick story, the situation is always hopeless but never serious.
9. "Cowardly" would be too strong a word to Maverick. "Cautious" is possibly more accurate and certainly more kind. When the two brothers went off to the Civil War, their old pappy said to them: "If either of you comes back with a medal, I'll beat you to death." They never shamed him.
10. The widely held belief that Maverick is a gambler is a fallacy. In his hands, poker is not a game of chance. He plays it earnestly, patiently, and with a abiding faith in the laws of probability.

The entire article is at http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/70/70pi ... esmond.php

[knitwit45]

how perfect! Thanks ChiO, you gave me my first laugh of the day ( I always try to laugh at least twice...)

[ChiO]

When I read the 10 Points, my first thought was that when there's a reference to the character "Maverick", it seemed like a description of most of the characters that James Garner would portray, THE GREAT ESCAPE, VICTOR/VICTORIA and The Rockford Files immediately coming to mind.

[mrsl]

.
Chio:

If you didn't see Jim Garner's interview with RO, you must have heard about his 5 year plans that lasted for over 25 years? At the end of every 5 years in Hollywood, he would give it another 5 years to see if he was still making a living at acting, and apparently it was. But the funny thing about his plan is that it more or less symbolizes the 10 point plan formulated by Mr. Huggins.
.

[RedRiver]

I literally haven't seen this show in fifty years. Talk about a little grey hair!

[RedRiver]

it seemed like a description of most of the characters that James Garner would portray

Absolutely, Chio! When my mom watched THE ART OF LOVE, she said, "I take it Maverick is up to his usual shenanigans!"