Wells Fargo

The Western Encore channel has only just recently begun to show "Tales of Wells Fargo" here in January of 2016. I haven't watched this black and white cowboy show since it originally aired on network television back in the late Fifties and early Sixties. I must admit that I am really enjoying watching Dale Robertson as the Wells Fargo special agent or troubleshooter. The show brings to mind "Have Gun, Will Travel." Hardie, like Paladin, is a man who would rather use his wits and wiles before resorting to his fists or weapon. Like Paladin, Joe Hardie, travels all over the west and into Canada, tracking down highway agents, frauds and thieves.

If Dale Robertson had come along about ten years earlier he would have been a great cowboy hero and Herbert J. Yates no doubt would have had him in his stable of western heroes. But he came along just as the B western was going out of business on the big screen and quite frankly he was a much better actor than some of the B cowboys. He did some serious B films, never quite getting stardom on the big screen, though some of the films were good.

The small screen treated him better with the Tales Of Wells Fargo series in which Dale's character of Jim Hardie narrated his exploits in tracking down those who would rob from his employer the Wells Fargo company.

I think the series was good because it called for Robertson to be a detective as well as a cowboy hero. The scripts were intelligently written given the constraints of developing characters in only thirty minute episodes for the most part.

In the last season the show was expanded to sixty minutes, but the producers also decided to give Robertson's character Jim Hardie a ranch and something of a home life. It never seems to cease, a perfectly good format, tinkered with and then cancellation.

Still Tales Of Wells Fargo gave Dale Robertson his career role, at least the one this fan remembers him best for. And he was a left handed draw, the most well known one on television until Michael Landon as Little Joe Cartwright came along.

As a child, I watched this series and enjoyed it very much. It had all of the aspects of the old "B" westerns, but the acting and writing was so much better. Dale Robertson made a number of "B" movies in his time and I believe that this series was the best of the group. Up until a few years ago, it was hard to find any of the episodes in this series. So, I am glad that it is now being shown on cable TV and the quality is really better than when I watched them many years ago.

The western-adventure series "Tales of Wells Fargo" premiered on NBC's Prime Time schedule as a mid-season replacement on March 18,1957 where it became one of the network's biggest hits that started in a era filled with television Westerns. Out of the 200 episodes that this series produced only actor Dale Robertson(who played special agent Jim Hardie for Wells Fargo) was with the series throughout it's entire six season run in all 200 episodes. Out of the 200 episodes only Seasons 1 through 5 produced only 166 black and white episodes that ran 30 minutes in length(with commercials)airing from March 18,1957 until July 10,1961. Only the first five seasons aired on Monday nights in prime time at the 8:30 eastern/7:30 central time slot where it produced 166 black and white episodes. In the sixth and final season of the series saw a change in production when NBC moved "Tales of Wells Fargo" from Monday nights to Saturday nights to an earlier time slot where the show expanded to a full hour and was what NBC would say "The Following Program Is Brought To You In Living Color" and this time new cast members were added. The sixth and final season which moved to Saturday nights at the 7:30 eastern/6:30 central time slot where 34 color episodes were produced airing from September 30,1961 to June 2,1962.

"Tales of Wells Fargo" was the brainchild of creators Frank Gruber and Gene Reynolds where Nat Holt served as executive producer of the series and was produced by Earle Lyon and Al C. Ward which produced a total of 200 episodes airing from March 18,1957 until June 2,1962. Actor William Demarest(later of "My Three Sons" fame)joined the cast in the final season of the series. "Tales of Wells Fargo" as a series was a well written satisfying western that followed the exploits of special agent Jim Hardie, agent for Wells Fargo who served during the first five seasons as narrator/agent and later on became a rancher while still protecting the law and order for Wells Fargo.

Big name directors from Earl Bellamy, Sidney Salkow, R.G. Springsteen, to William Witney, Christian Nyby, William F. Claxton, to George Waggner, Boris Segal and Gene Nelson contribute to some of the great episodes. Writers were Samuel A. Peeples, James Brooks, Gene Reynolds, Dwight Newton, D.D. Beauchamp, Ken Pettus, Barney Slater, Jack Turley, Sam Peckinpah, Frank Price, to Louis L'Amour and A.I. Bezzerides. "Tales of Wells Fargo" was produced by Revue Studios(the same studio that brought you "Wagon Train" and "The Virginian") for NBC Television.

The guest star roster consisted of Chuck Connors, Michael Landon, Hugh Beaumont, Robert Vaughn, Dan Blocker, James Coburn, Claude Akins, Denver Pyle, Jack Elam, Edgar Buchanan(who appeared in six episodes). Other guest stars were Nick Adams, Charles Bronson, Eddie Albert, John Dehner, Royal Dano, Martin Landau, Simon Oakland, Jan Merlin, Celia Kaye, to Jack Nicholson, Paul Fix(who appeared in six episodes), Buddy Ebsen, to Ray Teal, Lee Van Cleef among others.

Dale Robertson makes this show his own. A boxer, horseman, and war hero before he ever appeared on screen, he never had an acting lesson, but his character somehow shines through in the part he plays. Intense. If he walked toward you in a saloon, you'd definitely step aside. He spits out his lines in a clipped cadence and is totally believable. His narration can add a poetic touch to some episodes, but more often it seems like he's recalling an experience from his own past, effectively setting up the episode before jumping in.

The stories are well-written, packing a lot into each half-hour episode. Though there are bank robberies and stage hold-ups, they also explore fresh territory, like an outlaw who fakes his own death in order to collect the reward, or a gun smuggling ring, or a stage coach that disappears in a ghost town.

The show doesn't rely on a cast of support characters, but with Robertson's presence, the clever plotting, and sharp dialogue, it isn't necessary. And with the character dispatched to a different locale every episode, the show avoids the static feel of most western series.