Have Gun - Will Travel

I recently bought season one of "Have Gun - Will Travel" on DVD. I'm only twenty years old, but I've always had an interest in the golden age of television and westerns. I've never seen this show before purchasing it... but I've heard my father talking about it before and it sparked an interest.

Unlike "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza", "Have Gun - Will Travel" is a lot darker (for it's time, especially) and a lot more in-depth - story-wise and moral-wise -- but not too dark, mind you. It's tasteful and holds important morals. Richard Boone, who plays the jack-of-all- trades hero Paladin, does a terrific job playing the classy scholar gun-for-hire who often quotes Shakespeare. The show relies more on character interaction and story, as opposed to the cliché gun slingin' and horse riding (although they are included tastefully into the story lines).

Overall, this is an extremely fun show. If you like the '50s Disney "Zorro", starring Guy Williams, than you'll love this. Amazing for any Western and Drama fan, too.

4.5/5, quality entertainment, writing, production and acting.

What a remarkable half hour of allegory and metaphor. Starting with the premise that our protagonist is a fellow who others don't like - he's a gunfighter. And that he charges a lot - $1,000 - and that he is cool - wears black and uses a business card - and he does good deeds for others.

And he doesn't like to use his gun to solve problems.

This vehicle is used over and over again to good effect. He solves interesting problems that span a large part of the country and a large array of people - blacks, chinese, mexicans, bums, crooks and good guys.

Writers include Roddenberry.

Good stuff, mostly.

Richard Boone was a thoughtful and serious actor, and so must have felt a great satisfaction in playing a 'thoughtful gunman' in the Old West.

Although Paladin often professed the desire to settle every situation without gunplay if possible, his rivals in most shows didn't afford him that opportunity. It's a rare show that Paladin didn't have to shoot someone ... sometimes a few someones.

Despite many story corners having to be cut to fit these stories into a 30-minute format, each story is interesting and compelling, virtually always with a twist that keeps them from being some of the many Western clichés.

Now that the series has been resurrected on Encore Westerns, generations who had no opportunity to appreciate this fine series in years past can now discover it for themselves. This is yet another example of how many television shows from the 50s and early 60s were far superior to most of what is filmed now.

Richard Boone was brilliant as Paladin and the opening where he draws his gun to tension-building music was one of the best of any program made during the late-fifties. The half hour programs were always socially and politically poignant, with the hero always prevailing over injustice, discrimination and hate.

The craggy-faced Boone dresses in black, making him a possible icon for the motorcycle sub-culture of our society. A typical "anti-hero"....establishing his OWN justice and being an avenging angel, tormenting those who have been unjust. Seemingly of the opinion that less is more, Paladin never EVER used his gun unless absolutely necessary and somehow, in the process, scared all malefactors crap-less. We could use more of that humbleness today.

Shows like "Dog - Bounty Hunter" and "Orange County Chopper" once had the potential to be modern versions of Paladin, but are quite lost on me, due to today's propensity away from mental and moral stability and toward "quirkiness." Today producers feel more is best and less is nothing. This disease is epidemic in the entertainment productions of the early 21st century. Television was truly meant for great programs like Have Gun - Will Travel.

Intelligent, principled, competent, courageous, educated and suave. A bit ruthless perhaps, but a hero. Such was Palladin, who could quote Shakespeare as well as he used his perfectly balance Cavalry model 1873 Colt Single Action Revolver. This was the perfect counterpoint to Maverick's irony. For a school boy who also loved Shakespeare, Palladin became a justification. If a Western hero could be literate, then a literate boy was OK. Richard Boone was excellent, as we all know and yet... I wonder if John Dehner (who played Palladin on radio and who could not take the role on television because of contractual difficulties) had played the role, what would that have been like? Dehner vs Boone... speculation only but Dehner's greater sophistication against Boone's rugged masculinity. Both the radio and TV versions of Palladin were excellent. There has been little or nothing like it since.