Have Gun - Will Travel

As the proud owner of both the first and second seasons of "Have Gun - Will Travel", I am continually impressed with the quality and complexities of this "forgotten" treasure. Created during an age of western storytelling that was inundated with cardboard, do-gooders that were so clean they squeaked when they walked, Paladin stands out as an effective genre bridge between the over idealistic cowboy typified in John Wayne and the anti-hero "The Man With No Name" Clint Eastwood. "Have Gun - Will Travel" is a series that remembers the key to great storytelling is a believable character being true to himself at all times. Paladin is a combination rogue who works within the system, Robin Hood, and a crusader for the downtrodden. Quick with both a gun and a sarcastic wit, this professional problem solver is as at home in a drawing room as he is around a campfire. While this may sound hokey if you are as cynical as I am, I can assure you it is not. Besides casting the perfect actor for the role, the late Richard Boone, the creators used a talented group of writers {including Gene "Wagontrain to the Stars" Roddenberry} who used every second of screen time to move you through story lines that were frequently only westerns in their setting. I particularly enjoy the fact that you are never given more than an occasional hint as to Paladin's back-story. While this may frustrate some viewers, I find the air of mystery that it lends to the character adds to his complexity. For anyone that truly enjoys well crafted escapism or simply wonders if new life can be brought to an already overworked concept, you could not find a finer example of the true artistic potential of cinema's "bastard" child than "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.

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.

I suspect this series grew out of a radio show of the early 50's called Frontier Gentleman with John Dehner as a polished force for good in the Old West. Of course, a character like that cuts against the stereotype of the western hero, who, whatever his level of gun-slinging skill, is rarely able to quote Shakespeare or distinguish a Rothschild '29 from a swig of whiskey. But, of course, Palladin can. In fact, the guy in black knows all the arts of refinement, which not surprisingly came to separate him from the hundred other Western heroes of that day.

But casting an intellectual gun-fighter for a macho Western series presents a tricky challenge. The actor's got to be authoritative whether slinging a gun or fingering a glass of wine, and also be masculine enough to command respect in both regards. And this is where the series really succeeded. They got Richard Boone, an actor who can make you believe most anything. Plus, his homely, craggy looks are unlike any of the many handsome heroes of the day. At the same time, dressing him in black, with a mysterious background and a mythological name pretty much completes the package that produced big success in the ratings, lasting an unusual six seasons.

The opening sequence in San Francisco usually played up Palladin's refinements and success with the ladies, even dressing him often like a dandy. After that, he'd hire out, change into his black work clothes, and go on the road to some risky situation. My favorite stories are those that have him trying to figure out where the truth lies, because often his employer would shade the truth for various reasons. Then, our knight-without-armor would have to rely on instinct and a sense of honor since he's not a lawman with a duty to perform. What duty he does have comes from a knight's sense of honor that only he is responsible for, reinforcing his image as an ultimate loner.

Wisely, the script would occasionally humanize Palladin's superior skills by having him reflect on the strange ways of the world or on the wisdom of his actions. For example, he might stare off in silence at the end of a particularly troubling story, or quote something wise that would make us think. These were important moments that added a thoughtful dimension too commonly missing from other horse operas of the time. Then too, even weak stories were often compensated by Boone's commanding presence.

I don't know if HGWT was the best series of that six-gun saturated era—the early Gunsmoke (1955-60) was awfully good as was Sam Peckinpaugh's brilliant but short-lived The Westerner (1960). Nonetheless, the guy in black is definitely worth catching up with, along with that catchy title tune.

From 1957 through 1963, my father and I watched Paladin collide with, subtly interface with or adroitly meld with various picaresque characters in the old West circa the 1880's. What strikes me now at age 67 is that . . .

a. In a manner similar to Gordon Parks' wonderful book, "A Choice of Weapons," in which the author chose compassion, wit, a sense of humor, patience, charm, resourcefulness and other positives - as opposed to violence - as a means out of the ghetto and upward and onward toward financial, personal and professional success - It strikes me now that Paladin was an exemplary role model for young men, maybe particularly in America of the 1950s and early 1960s - but moreover, now in the age of uncivil gridlock and those who appear desirous to utilize direct military intervention as the panacea for any and all international disputes.

b. Paladin as portrayed by Richard Boone strikes me now as a rather Pirandello-esque character looking for and often trying to create a better, more civilized, world with his erudition, his wisdom, and his unwillingness to use his hand gun unless absolutely necessary. Paladin almost always finds himself outnumbered, outgunned, and often betrayed, sabotaged, and either beaten up or nearly killed by a scurvy array of vicious scoundrels, con men and women, roues, and miscreants. He frequently suffers for upholding the noblest of principles.

The story "The Protégé" is perhaps the very best illustration of my point. A young man who was bullied turns into a bully himself. In the end, it is the protagonist's own father who confesses to Paladin that the latter proved himself to be the young man's very best friend- even beyond death.

c. Rites of passage, naturalistic tragi-comedies, and complex slice-of-life short stories with a moral, "Have Gun Will Travel" was best viewed just before "Gunsmoke," another vehicle for what I view as real, pragmatic family values: e.g. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be trustworthy. Champion and defend women, children, the helpless and the underdog. When I purchased an autographed copy of James Arness's autobiography several years ago, I shared with him my appreciation for the values he inculcated in the heart of this young boy at the time.

d. "Have Gun, Will Travel" may have represented an acquired taste for some viewers. Plots were never simplistic. Despite showcasing great writers such as Gene Roddenberry, this show never took the easy road to success. The show was a mighty draw for some of the greatest - albeit then unheralded - actors and actresses who wished to cut their teeth in a show without special effects, focusing, instead on good stories substantiated by excellent writing. With its emphasis on complex characterization and sensitive themes, the show took great creative risks.

"The Gunfighter and the Princess" is apt illustration of this point. In the space of 30 minutes, minus commercials, Paladin regales an innocent young princess with two profound quotations from Marcus Aurelius, and another by Plato. These utterances focus on man's only responsibility to endure the prison of the self (Aurelius) and the difference, at heart, between anarchy, democracy, aristocracy (Plato).

A classics scholar, a former commander of a cavalry unit at Bull Run, Paladin is, nonetheless, a tender, loving man of peace at heart, a renaissance man who impresses ladies with his ability to cook and clean house while honoring honorable people.

To call "Have Gun, Will Travel" a western is to miss the point of a deeply philosophical drama, especially one that was filmed during the heating up of the Cold War and interspersed with the generals continually trying to egg Ike into one war after another with places like Quemoy, Matsu, Formosa and others. Like Ike, Paladin knew a better way: Getting along with human differences without resorting to violence. I suspect that like Ike who opined, "I knew those guys in the Pentagon," Paladin was quite familiar with the Dionysian impulse in humanity, that party-hearty urge that leads from narcissism to celebration, exaltation, violence and, ultimately, chaos. Paladin's Apollonian approach involved reason, logic, knowledge and making civilized, more authentic choices involving respect, cooperation and peaceful co-existence. His dialogue is always sprinkled with poignant witticisms from Western and Eastern classical literature and philosophy.

This, clearly, is not a show for the passive viewer who merely wishes to see a very superficial portrayal of man-versus man, a mere shoot-em-up. "Have Gun, Will Travel" excelled in penetrating examinations of man-versus society, man versus nature, and, especially, man versus self.

The older I become, the more gems and gold ore I find to mine in these seven seasons of "Have Gun, Will Travel."