Maverick

I just finished watching the last part of a February 1959 episode that had Clint Eastwood as a guest and it was great like most of the shows were. This show reminds me of how good television can be (but rarely is).On a personal level, it reminds me that this show was one of the few good things about the so-called good old days.

In the 50s (when I was young), there were mainly two types of shows: quiz show and westerns. Maverick brutally satirized two of the most popular, Gunsmoke and Bonanza, in different episodes. Watching either of these alone is enough to demonstrate just how good Maverick really was.

Catch it on TVland when you get the chance. It's worth it...

I've heard Bret Maverick described as a "coward" and the show described as a western spoof that gets its humor from the cowardice of the hero. I think this is totally wrong.

A decade before Star Trek introduced its "Prime Directive"- that they shouldn't interfere with the development of the civilizations they encounter, a rule they had to repeatedly break if there was to be any story, Bret Maverick was exercising his own "Prime Directive". All that advice from his "Pappy" adds up to one thing: mind your own business and if everyone else minds their own business, you'll be fine. When Maverick is at a gaming table, he's fine. He knows what's going on and can manipulate things to his advantage. When he gets involved in other things, he has the tread water just to keep up.

He's no coward. He can get angry and be aggressive, (especially in the early episodes, when Roy Huggins was still doing much of the writing). He just doesn't want his life to get too messy and would rather use his wits to resolve his problems rather than tactics that are likely to get somebody hurt. He saw too many people get hurt in the war and wasn't impressed.

But, as with "The Prime Directive", if Bret, (or Bart), was allowed to stick to this, there would be no story. So the writers had to come up with something to him involved in other people's business- or them in his.

The first option was to invoke rule #2: Bret doesn't let anybody cross him. If he gets cheated or conned, he will go far out of his way and bend all other rules, if necessary, to get what's coming to him and make sure the cheaters get what's coming to them. The second option was to introduce an attractive female- who may or may not be trustworthy and have her, intentionally or not, seduce Maverick into helping her solve her problems. Then, there's always money. Everybody has to bend rules when they are broke and a gambler frequently finds his luck running against him and will be willing to take a job- even a dangerous- one in such circumstances. Finally, there are occasions when, against his-and Pappy's better judgment, Maverick just has to do the right thing. These weaknesses and inconvenient strengths endear the character to the audience.

So does Maverick's generally sunny disposition. When he's minding his own business, he figures things will work out. Even when he's in trouble, he somehow always seems to figure he will get out of it somehow and takes temporary defeats in stride. Someone said that "Maverick" is "The Rockford Files" out west. Of course, "Maverick" came first. There are similarities. But Rockford is more world-weary, lest trustful of what the future may bring. A stretch in jail will do that do you. With him, avoiding complications is even more important. He does detective work because it's what he knows but he really just wants to make enough money to go fishing with his Pappy. Maverick stills see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Although I grew up watching classic television I somehow completely missed Maverick until 2015. Thus while Maverick is an older series it was very new to me. I suppose that is the wonderful thing to realize that there are still great series out there to discover.

I started to watch Maverick specifically because of James Garner. I had recently re-watched the Great Escape (a favorite film of mine) and wanted to see more from Garner. Garner is absolutely wonderful here in his first starring role and it's no surprise that he had a long and very rich career.

However a real surprise for me was Jack Kelly. Before Maverick I had absolutely no idea who Jack Kelly was which is not surprising because while he did a lot of small roles and guest spots, Maverick was definitely the highlight of his career. I am also happy I went into Maverick blind and did not read the many grossly inaccurate reviews that Garner was all there was to Maverick. You will notice that most people who say Kelly did not measure up to Garner admit they "skip the Kelly episodes". Another trend I notice that those who do give Kelly the most credit say they have reevaluated Kelly as an adult and realize they underrated him.

Pretty much with the first 3 seasons whether you watch a Kelly or Garner episode you can't lose. Garner tended to have the best comedy and Western parody scripts while Kelly got the better dramatic and drawing room comedy scripts. It was the contrast between Kelly & Garner that made the series so great along with well written scripts that still stand up as classics today. However the very best episodes had Garner and Kelly together, their chemistry was pure magic and one of the shows biggest mistakes was not giving us more episodes with them together.

Seasons 4 and 5 aren't bad but they definitely don't measure up to the previous 3 seasons (the best of which is season 2). Not only because you have lost Garner at that point but Roy Huggins the producer and creator of the series left at the end of season 2. Most of the best writers also left with him.

For a short time Roger Moore joined the series as cousin Beau. Moore put up a good effort despite weaker scripts but the series would never be the same without Garner. Although if my previous paragraphs were not clear I feel if Kelly had been the one to leave the show he also would have left an irreplaceable hole. Garner of course started the series without Kelly but in those very early episodes the show was still finding itself and is also not the best Maverick has to offer.

However even at its worst, Maverick is still pretty entertaining if not as clever and witty as it once was. You only notice the decline in the later seasons when you have just finished watching the superior earlier seasons.

James Garner's acting on 1957's TV series "Maverick" is superbly inspired but usually underrated because he memorably told the press at the time that he "can't act. I'll learn if I have to, but so far I haven't had to." This modest refusal to champion himself publicly resulted in his performances being taken much more for granted, but viewed today, it's apparent that here was a world-class talent throwing himself into every scene, registering a virtual three-ring circus of facial expressions; there is always something going on to look at, in severe contrast to most of the other TV western leads of the era. Jack Kelly, normally a more pedestrian performer, lights up to incandescence in his scenes with Garner and their astonishing chemistry vaults the series' fantastic entertainment value phenomenally, although Kelly's solo outings aren't in the same league and his acting seemed to deteriorate along with the quality of some of the scripts in the wake of Garner's departure. Kelly was completely and utterly lacking Garner's genius for comedy, except when working directly with Garner.

I always thought of Garner's character's warmth as being his hallmark trait, perhaps as a result of years of seeing "The Rockford Files," but upon recently studying the "Maverick" tapes it became apparent that his character was basically cool and chilly, almost businesslike with an Indiana Jones-like seriousness in his routine comportment, but quite warm with friends. This surprised me. When people refer to Bret Maverick as "cool," they're actually much more correct than I ever would've assumed.

This is the role that made James Garner, and as much as I like his later work, for me he would never be this much fun to watch again (exception: Support Your Local Sheriff, but that was unquestionably written to capitalize on his Maverick role).

I remembered liking Maverick when I was a kid, but after 40 odd years I didn't remember a single episode or plot line. I can't tell you what a pleasure it was to find this series resurrected on Good Life (Now American Life) TV. Sadly, after a few years ALTV abandoned the excellent B&W series they had been showing, and began airing very inferior color series from later years. Yep, I'll take Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip over Time Tunnel and Lost in Space .... EVERY time.

However, when it aired on ALTV, discovering each episode's charm brought my wife and I months of entertainment, and expectation for the next week.

Among some classic episodes to look for are:

* "War of the Silver Kings", this is the first episode and unquestionably one of the best

* "Gun Shy", an absolutely hilarious take off on Gun Smoke

* "A Fellow's Brother", an entertaining story throughout that made me fall out of my chair laughing when presented with the twist that resolved the crises

* "Shady Day at Sunny Acres", in which Bret Maverick spends the majority of the episode in a rocking chair on the town's boardwalk, whittling and uttering the line, "I'm workin' on it"

* "Pappy", wherein you meet the originator of all of Bret's "My old Pappy used to say ..." lines. Garner of course plays dual roles in the episode and does a great job. (So the movie is only the 2nd time he got to play Bret's father!)