CBS has just made available for free viewing on its website whole seasons of some of its “TV Classics” series. Beauty and the Beast, Beverly Hills 90210, Dynasty, Family Ties, Have Gun-Will Travel, Hawaii Five-0, The Love Boat, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Perry Mason, Star Trek: The Original Series, The Twilight Zone, and Twin Peaks.
I am particularly pleased to see the first season of Have Gun-Will Travel included. HGWT was one of the most intelligently written western series. Because it has not been rerun in many years, it is probably unknown to most readers.
The series features the excellent actor Richard Boone, as a hired gun who, like several characters of the era, has two lives. One as a silk smoking jacket resident of a posh San Francisco hotel, the other as the black clad Paladin (“a knight without armor in a savage land”) who takes a substantial fee for his services. The back story on Paladin is left murky. What is clear is that he is highly educated and well read, a war veteran, and product of a military academy. More info on the series is here.
One of the distinctive features of the series is its opening credits, which always begin with a close up on his holstered gun. Paladin’s hand then points the gun directly at the camera and Boone speaks one of the lines from the forthcoming episode. For example, at the beginning of episode 9, “Show of Force,” he says:
“I could have taken that letter when I wanted it; even while you held a gun on me. Put the gun away counselor. What good is proof to a dead lawyer.”
The series is well worth checking out, although of course it is of inconsistent quality. (The episodes are on the website in reverse order.) My major disappointment was that this release of “classic” series does not include The Defenders, the CBS series about a father-son New York criminal defense firm that first made me want to be a lawyer, and a criminal lawyer at that. The couple episodes I have seen on video tape–a gift from students–still hold up quite well. There seems to be some sort of rights issue with The Defenders. I hope one day it is sorted out.
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