| The Westerner | |
|---|---|
 Brian Keith as Dave Blassingame and Spike as Brown, 1960 | |
| Genre | Western |
| Created by | Sam Peckinpah |
| Written by | Jack Curtis Bruce Geller Tom Gries Robert Heverly Sam Peckinpah |
| Directed by | Sam Peckinpah André de Toth Tom Gries |
| Starring | Brian Keith |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Hal Hudson |
| Producer | Sam Peckinpah |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 25 mins. |
| Production company | Four Star Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | September 30 – December 30, 1960 |
The Westerner is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from September 30 to December 30, 1960. Created and produced by Sam Peckinpah, who also wrote and directed some episodes, the series was a Four Star Television production. The Westerner stars Brian Keith as amiable, unexceptional cowhand/drifter Dave Blassingame, and features John Dehner as rakish Burgundy Smith, who appeared in three episodes.
Dave Blassingame is a cowboy and drifter who is handy with a gun and his fists, travelling through an often lawless country trying to get enough money together to buy his own ranch.
His dog Brown is played by Spike, trained by Frank Weatherwax and best known for playing the title role in Old Yeller. Brown figures prominently in a number of episodes, appears in all of them, and always appears following Blassingame during the end credits.
Guest stars included Malcolm Atterbury, Ben Cooper, Katy Jurado, and John M. Pickard, Sam Jaffe, and one episode (the first, "Jeff") memorably featured Warren Oates as a drunk quietly passing out at a table. Other guest stars, like Ms. Jurado, would later go on to appear in some of Peckinpah's feature films. These included John Anderson (Ride the High Country), R. G. Armstrong (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), Dub Taylor (The Wild Bunch, The Getaway), and Mary Murphy (Junior Bonner).
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pilot | "Trouble at Tres Cruces" | Sam Peckinpah | Sam Peckinpah | March 26, 1959 | |
| This was episode 24 of season 3 of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. | |||||
| 1 | "Jeff" | Sam Peckinpah | Robert Heverly, Sam Peckinpah | September 30, 1960 | |
| 2 | "School Days" | André De Toth | Robert Heverly, Sam Peckinpah | October 7, 1960 | |
| 3 | "Brown" | Sam Peckinpah | Bruce Geller | October 21, 1960 | |
| 4 | "Mrs. Kennedy" | Bernard L. Kowalski | John Dunkel, Sam Peckinpah | October 28, 1960 | |
| 5 | "Dos Pinos" | Don McDougall | E. Jack Neuman | November 4, 1960 | |
| 6 | "The Courting of Libby" | Sam Peckinpah | Bruce Geller | November 11, 1960 | |
| 7 | "Treasure" | Ted Post | Cyril Hume | November 18, 1960 | |
| 8 | "The Old Man" | André De Toth | Jack Curtis, Sam Peckinpah | November 25, 1960 | |
| 9 | "Ghost of a Chance" | Bruce Geller | Milton S. Gelman | December 2, 1960 | |
| 10 | "Line Camp" | Tom Gries | Tom Gries | December 9, 1960 | |
| 11 | "Going Home" | Elliot Silverstein | Jack Curtis | December 16, 1960 | |
| 12 | "Hand on the Gun" | Sam Peckinpah | Bruce Geller | December 23, 1960 | |
| 13 | "The Painting" | Sam Peckinpah | Bruce Geller | December 30, 1960 | |
The musical score was largely the work of Four Star's Herschel Burke Gilbert.
The pilot for The Westerner appeared on CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.
For rerun syndication it was grouped with three other short-lived Western series from the same company, Black Saddle starring Peter Breck, Johnny Ringo starring Don Durant, and Law of the Plainsman starring Michael Ansara, under the umbrella title The Westerners, bracketed with hosting sequences featuring Keenan Wynn.[1]
A two-DVD set of the complete series including the pilot episode was released by Shout! Factory in February 2017.[2]
The critically acclaimed series ran for 13 episodes, but it was cancelled because of low ratings (due to being placed in the same time slot as The Flintstones and Route 66).[3]
An attempt to update and revive the hardbitten series aired as a January 1963 episode of The Dick Powell Theater, "The Losers", directed by Peckinpah and featuring Lee Marvin as Dave Blassingame and Keenan Wynn as Burgundy Smith, but set in the modern West. Rosemary Clooney portrayed the leading lady.
One of the episodes of The Westerner, "Line Camp" guest-starring Robert Culp, was the basis for the 1968 film Will Penny starring Charlton Heston. Slim Pickens plays essentially the same role, as a feisty derby-wearing cook, in both the television episode and the movie.
Brian Keith briefly played the same character again in 1991's The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, which featured a number of 1950s and 1960s television Western series leads reprising their roles in quick cameo appearances (Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp, Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie, David Carradine as Kung Fu's Caine, Chuck Connors as The Rifleman, and so on).
