Wanted: Dead or Alive

Wanted: Dead or Alive has always been my favourite TV western. I first watched it as a seven year old in the mid '60s, even then it was in reruns.

Right from the start the show had the coolest lead-in ever with the camera focused squarely on Josh Randall's 'hogleg' as he slowly walks up to a wanted poster and rips it away from the board. There was something 'mighty' intriguing about the lone bounty hunter who brought in many more bad guys alive than dead. And then there was that sawed-off Winchester '86 and those large 45-70 caliber cartridges. I never did figure out how Josh could load so fast. It couldn't have taken more than three rounds in its magazine, but Josh could easily get off four or five rounds in rapid succession. What about Josh's horse? He/she seemed to prefer to walk sideways but could back up as well as Trigger. Great memories, no doubt. I've viewed countless westerns over the years and I am firmly convinced that absolutely no one but Steve McQueen could have played TV's purest bounty hunter. Todays version is colourized and I think that's fantastic. Even my kids will sit and watch from time to time.

Wanted, Dead or Alive was a star vehicle in the truest sense of the term. It was a western calculated to exhibit the talent and charisma of its star, Steve McQueen. It lasted for three seasons before McQueen decided to devote full time to the big screen.

McQueen was after some of the most dangerous fellows in the old west, plenty who could shoot a lot better than he. His character Josh Randall needed an equalizer.

In John Wayne's classic western El Dorado, you remember that Duke discovers that James Caan can't hit the broad side of a mountain with a regular six shooter. Before going to El Dorado to aid Robert Mitchum, they stop off and see a gunsmith who fixes Caan up with a Josh Randall special. After that Caan's of considerable help to Wayne and Mitchum.

Of course the sawed off shotgun was also an evil weapon in the wrong hands. Take note of the Dan Duryea western, The Bounty Killer, a very Freudian piece where Duryea becomes hated and feared as a bounty hunter until an innocent bystander gets shot with it.

But with McQueen you knew the weapon was on the side of law and order. As for his Josh Randall character, you can see a bit of him in all the people Steve McQueen brought to the screen like Virgil Hilts, Nevada Smith, all the way to his last two films, Tom Horn and Pappa Thorsen.

Wanted, Dead or Alive was most folks first exposure to a screen legend. I wish that westerns like that were made today.

Many viewers have panned this series. It was hockey and implausible at times. However, I recently watched the series again on the Westerns Channel and offer these observations:

When "Wanted" first came out in 1958, network TV was flooded with formulaic Warner Brothers westerns. With few exceptions they were all mostly repetitive and forgettable. My picks for exceptions are, obviously, Gunsmoke, which stood above the others, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick and Josh Randall's Wanted Dead or Alive.

For the mid 1950s McQueen's character was ground breaking. He was the first anti-hero in a horse opera. Even when grouped with the line up of special gimmicks westerns (the rapid fire Winchester of The Rifleman; the weird Colt of The Rebel; Wyatt Earp's Buntline Special), Randall and his hog leg stood out. Never mind that he didn't reload and the mechanics of the weapon were implausible, the series worked. It was unique. McQueen was unique.

I was 11 years old when the series started and it hooked me. Sure, it is difficult to watch it today without a laugh or question about its relation to reality. But back then it was cool and so was McQueen. And as someone else commented, only McQueen could have played the character of Josh Randall. For that matter, look at all his motion pictures. I don't believe any other actor could have made those films what they were.

Even 25 years after his death, McQueen is as popular as he ever was. As far as I can see, only John Wayne still has that kind of appeal.

I'm just old enough to remember when Wanted Dead or Alive was first run, when I first went to the show to see The Magnificent Seven, and when I first realized Steve McQueen was on his way to being a "star".

I received the boxed set of the first season of this groundbreaking show this past Christmas and have been having great fun with it ever since. McQueen is the real star of the show, honing his craft for later career moves, with the truly offbeat story lines and resolutions coming in a close second.

Forget that it's 1877, he was in the Union Army in 1864, which would make him 8-10 years older than his real age at the time. Forget that his sawed off Winchester 1892 didn't exist in this time frame, that it fired short pistol ammunition like .44-40 and possibly .45 Colt, that it couldn't possibly accept the long .30-30 cartridges on his belt that weren't developed until the Winchester 1894 came along. In the first episode he has to bury a murdered doctor and he pulls a U.S. military shovel circa 1944 from under his saddle. While he puts 19th century cuffs on some prisoners, ties some with rope, on one occasion he puts old fashioned leg irons on a prisoner's hands, way too dangerous and way too stupid for a pro like Josh Randall. In a feat too fantastic to believe, an outlaw takes away his sawed off Winchester and removes the firing pin without the aid of tools and without so much as removing the bolt from the receiver. Of course there's also that sawed off rifle of his that sometimes has a D-ring on the lever and sometimes a teardrop ring, a gun barrel that changes from round to hexagon, and a gun barrel that always has a bigger bore than the .30 caliber slug in a .30-30 shell. And let's not forget that the outdoor scenes seldom match the geography of the story lines and that more times than not they use the same western street sound stage for towns ranging from Wyoming to Arizona to Texas with just the store front names changing! All this in just the first half of the first season. LOL

The show is all about watching McQueen, watching the offbeat stories that sometimes beg for more time for storytelling, and watching for all the goofs. It's great fun and well worth the time even 50 years later!

I usually write long reviews, but having just read the other 23 reviews that are here, I am going to keep this very brief. I am in my 70s and am giving the classic TV Westerns one more go-round, before hanging it up. What impressed me about this series, and I mean really impressed me, is the quality of the writing. It is sometimes spare, but it matters. I also think that, for a 22-minute show, the direction was unusually good. There were times that I had to remind myself that John Ford wasn't directing. Look carefully, and you'll see what I mean. The series brought the best out of a lot of pedestrian actors. Lastly, I agree with everyone that McQueen was a very cool guy, but what he was doing required attention to the director and a performance that is reminiscent of the best method actors (Brando, Steiger, others). I am glad I gave this series another look. It is more enjoyable now than it was when I was a kid.