The Westerner

There were so many westerns on TV in 1960 that you could almost smell the phony gunsmoke. Most were forgettably simple-minded tales of good vs.evil, with cardboard characters, predictable outcomes, and no hint of real world complexity. Then along came an anonymous entry on Friday night without the big name stars or glamour of a Wagon Train, Bonanza, or Big Valley and long before the movie-going public had heard of Sam Peckinpah. You had to stumble across the show to even know it was there-- (what little publicity it got dwelled on a gimmick, Keith's 'scoped rifle', which Peckinpah ditched as soon as possible.). Nonetheless, The Westerner, as other reviewers point out, was ground-breaking in its willingness to explore nuance, and bring some realism to that most heavily fictionalized of American genres-- The Cowboy Movie. Instead of the usual cowboy hero as an unbeatable force for good, Bryan Keith's Dave Blassingame is a recognizable human being. He's a cowpoke drifter-- dusty from the trail, who befriends dogs, hookers, and lowlifes, can't read or write, likes to drink and brawl win or lose, and is obviously going nowhere in life. But he has an innate sense of honor that occasionally lifts him above the ordinary. In short, he's one of those rare characters who stands for the rest of us, not as a god, but as a real recognizable human being. It would be a mistake to read too much into the show-- it only lasted 13 weeks. But Peckinpah's willingness to challenge conventions is clearly evident, while the episode titled The Line Camp is as good as any show from that era. In this post-Vietnam period, it may be harder to see what was so special about the series. Still, the episodes wear well and the best are dramas as good now as they were then. I never thought I'd have a chance to share a public salute to what Peckinpah was trying to do, and was never even sure anyone else was watching. The series was simply there one week and gone the next as though it had never existed-- and I never knew why. I think now that the plots and characters were simply too offbeat for the time, and the sponsors and network lost their nerve. But I've never forgotten Dave Blassingame and his big scruffy dog. Thank you, Sam Peckinpah for trying to do something special, and thanks to The Western Channel for reviving this obscure but outstanding series.

Probably too downbeat and "adult" for its times, the series soon vanished from network screens. At the age of eleven, having been beguiled by advance advertising of the series, I was bewildered when it disappeared before I could locate it on the schedule. In retrospect it seems like the ideal vehicle to make Brian Keith a top star-something that never quite happened.

It seems a brilliant touch of writing to make Dave Blassengame (what a name for a hero) an illiterate, itinerant cowpoke with the soul of a knight errant. He is Palidan without the cultural overlay. Guest appearances by distinguished journeyman actors like Slim Pickens, Michael Ansara, Robert Culp and others too numerous to include in this space make "the Westerner" a treat for me-especially when I had to wait forty-five years for it to appear on cable T.V. .

Sam Peckinpah had been active on such early TV adult westerns as Gunsmoke and The Rifleman, but he hoped to and dreamed of creating the most authentic TV cowboy show of all. Originally to have been titled "The Lone Westerner," it finally reached network TV in the fall of 1960, and lasted maybe thirteen weeks before being unceremoniously canceled. Meanwhile, Bonanza - the most stupid and least realistic western of all time - was allowed to continue even though it didn't initially score in the ratings. But I'm off track. The Westerner was every bit as good as Peckinpah (who wrote some episodes, directed others) wanted it to be. Attention to historic detail was fabulous, and it had the kind of grim, no-nonsense qualities that made Gunsmoke so terrific during its first three seasons - when it was, briefly, the High Noon of TV westerns rather than the corny folksy show it all too quickly degenerated into. Keith had a John Wayne kind of quality that served the show admirably while that underrated character actor John Dehner played his sometimes sidekick, Burgundy Smith. Throw in the dog from Old Yeller (here called Brown, which was his real name) and some intriguingly anecdotal tales, all very anti-heroic, and you had a show that captured the escapades of an ordinary saddle tramp in a way that no other did. Tom Gries, who later mounted the magnificent western movie Will Penny, tried out some of the plots and characters of that 1968 film here. Look for such later Peckinpah stock company members as Warren Oates in the varied casts.

This series reminds me another one called THE LONER. Same period, same scenery and atmosphere with a kind of anti hero travelling from a place to another and who meets all kinds of people. As it was in the LONER, you deal here with pretty good characters study all over the show, far from those predictable garbage stuff which you find elsewhere in western series.

One of the most unusual and sophisticated westerns for its time or any other. Those who have seen it (I was able to see all thirteen episodes in Peckinpah festival in NYC at Walter Reade Theatre) will know how revealing it is about Peckinpah and his developing film technique, and just how plain entertaining it is. Brian Keith is so watchable that it makes you regret the fact he spent so many years doing Family Affair where he was mostly catatonic. If there is any way of getting this series onto home video, I would love to join forces with anyone who had an idea of how to bring this about.