Tate

I was still a teenager when this series aired and I liked it quite a lot; I wondered what happened to the series. Tate had one arm encased in what looked like black leather and wore a simple (leather?) sling to support the arm; however he was good with a gun and despite having only one good arm he seemed to be able to take care of himself. He came across as a sort of depressed/cynical loner who wandered the west rather aimlessly and kept a Post Office box in Kansas City. He would sometimes give this P.O. box address to friends he made in his travels so that they could get ahold of him should they need his services. This actually influenced me to get a Post Office box for myself when I got older.

One memorable line: "I hate the flat-lands." Interesting comment, considering that as I recall his character spent so much time in relatively flat looking country.

The star was a Los Angeles real estate executive who always wanted to be an actor. The character he played, Tate, was a man whose left arm was paralyzed by a wound in the Civil War. He drifted, hungry and disabled, and practiced with his pistol until he became a one armed gun for hire. After it became known that Tate was as quick and deadly as the killers and bullies he was paid to deal with he was sought after by every crazy in the country. He faced them all. Tate became paranoid and overly defensive because he had only one arm. When people messed with Tate he shot old women, school teachers, stray dogs, preachers and innocent bystanders. He struck out out every threat, real or imagined. The first attempt at reality TV in the western genre. And it was great. Still is. I want it on DVD. Now.

Actor David McLean was certainly no pretty-boy - And, he was almost pushing 40 when he took on the role of Tate, the handicapped gunslinger/bounty-hunter of the Old West.

I found Tate to be one of the very few TV Westerns of its time that actually had a genuine gritty edge to the various tales that it told in the 13 episodes of its one and only season (1960).

I think it was really too bad that Tate wasn't given a chance to at least run for a second season. This was a show that seemed to have a lot of potential. But, I guess that, at this point, the TV audience's interest in Westerns had waned considerably by the time 1960 had rolled around.

Personally, I found a majority of the episodes of Tate to be very intense and quite riveting in the nature of their story-lines.

And, of course, it was David McLean, as the title character, who was the driving force behind the gritty and keen realism of the show. McLean was certainly a man well-suited for his part.

Tate, a veteran of the Civil War (where an injury rendered his left arm unusable), was a true loner and something of a drifter who, following the war, headed out on the road using his remarkable talents as an ace-gunfighter to earn a living and bring some semblance of justice to the Old West.

Filmed in b&w, all of the 13 action-packed episodes of Tate had a running time of just 30 minutes.

Tate was a rather unique western series, unfortunately short-lived. Shown as "The Kraft Summer Theater Presentation of Tate", starring David McLean as (believe it or not) a one-armed bounty hunter!!!

Tate was working as a bounty hunter to raise money so he could go back east to pay for surgery to restore his bad arm, rendered useless by a gunshot wound. A bounty hunter with morals and a mission, Poor Tate never got to go back east after all, he got cancelled. The series was unique (at that time) in being shot on tape, not film, with camera work in the "live" style of television. Overall, the impression was that the show was "live", but was somewhat "smeared" due to the taping process.

This DVD contains all 13 episodes (all in B&W) of the western series "Tate" which ran as a summer replacement show on NBC in 1960. There was no pilot episode. The episode titles and their original air-dates are listed below. The ratings were not good enough to justify producing more episodes and bringing the series back in January 1961.

A knock-off of the wire Paladin concept from "Have Gun Will Travel", the title character could be reached though a Kansas City post office box. Two rather weak gimmicks were used to distinguish it from other westerns; only the character's last name was used and he had only one useful arm. His other arm was badly injured in the Civil War and is shown sheathed in leather.

Tate was a gunfighter played by David McLean (who was seen in commercials as The Marlboro Man and became an anti-smoking advocate before dying of lung cancer). Robert Redford made guest appearances in the "Comanche Scouts" and "The Bounty Hunter episodes, playing different characters.

The Mary Hardin Story: 29 June 1960, Voices of the Town: 6 July 1960, A Lethal Pride: 20 July 1960, Tigrero: 3 August 1960, Comanche Scalps: 10 August 1960, Before Sunup: 17 August 1960,The Reckoning: 24 August 1960, The Gunfighters: 31 August 1960, Quiet After the Storm: 7 September 1960, The Return of Jessica Jackson: 14 September 1960.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.