Cade's County

This series has a strong cast & good production. What happened that it ran so short a time? CBS was a big piece of the problem. This series was on the network which had given itself a black eye with the over hyped western dud Lancer. After such a terrible entry, folks ignored this entry because they were afraid it would be just as bad.

Then, CBS put it on late Sunday evenings. This time slot back in the three network days was a kiss of death for almost any program. As a matter of fact, Johnny Carson's quip concerning this show in a monologue on The Tonight Show then: "According to the latest Nielson ratings it dismayed CBS to find out that more than 90 percent of households tuned to Cades County on Sunday nights are using the program as a night light." Carsons pot shot at the show is a little cruel, but the program was canceled in one season.

I find it astounding that "Cade's County" was on the air for only one season. (When re-run I believe it was called "Sheriff of Madrid", Madrid being the county seat of Cade's county.) Although it was never specified in which state the county existed, everything pointed to Arizona or New Mexico. Ford provided a mature, compassionate hero who was correctly unbending on matters of right and wrong but willing to help people: the ideal lawman. Edgar Buchanan, an actor whom I personally found irritating in most roles, was a fine foil for Ford. As Ford was in his forties there was no hint of Buchana as old mentor so the dynamics were a bit unusual, as though Marshall Dillon's deputy Chester had been twenty years Dillon's senior. Ford's Jeep ripping through the desert landscape was a treat. In one standout episode Bobby Darrin demonstrated acting powers even beyond what he demonstrated in the motion picture "Captian Newman, M.D." The theme song was and is superb.

After a string of hits movies to boot(which were mostly Westerns),legendary Hollywood actor Glenn Ford gave TV a try with this weekly series that is now seldom seen nowadays. Here you'll have a show that was part of a modern day Western,and part crime drama show all in one and it was one of those shows that kept you on what would happen next. Ford was the tough and sensitive sheriff of Madrid County who kept law and order with his deputy(Petticoat Junction's Edgar Buchanan). However it did tackle issues that were relevant in its day like the plight of the American Indian,and the overall discrimination of the Mexican American and other minorities. The overall opening sequence of the show(seen with Ford going through the mountain landscape in a Jeep)makes for one of the best shows ever from the early 1970's that is rarely seen. NOTE:The shows theme was written by composer Henry Mancini,and this would be Glenn Ford's only TV series to date which ran from 1971-1973 on CBS.

Television was usually the springboard for many an illustrious movie career. Clint Eastwood, (Rawhide), Steve McQueen (Wanted Dead or Alive) and James Garner (Maverick), are three Hollywood heavyweights that got their start on the small screen. However, it was also a place where aging movie stars tended to retreat to when their box office clout had begun to fade. Rock Hudson, (McMillan and Wife), Ronald Reagan/Robert Taylor, (Death Valley Days), Buddy Ebsen, (The Beverley Hillbillies/Barnaby Jones. In fact, Ebsen made the transition so successfully, that today he is best remembered as a TV star than as a movie song and dance man.

Well in 1971, Glenn Ford joined that list of illustrious names, with his contemporary Western/Cop show Cade's County. Although always a bankable safe lead in many movies from the 1940's through to the 1960's, it's fair to say that Ford was never really a MEGAstar on the scale of Cable, Grant, Cooper or Astaire, but he did have one quality that no one could deny, he was always likeable on screen and his audiences would, most of the time, leave the theatre satisfied with the finished product.

By the end of the 1960's with censorship all but abolished and a new style of grittier, realistic filmmakers at the Hollywood tiller-pin steering the world of movie making towards a darker landscape that had never really been frequented by people like Glenn Ford, actors of his 'vintage' needed a place to go. Some were lucky enough to make that change to this new seedier style of film. Ford's own best friend William Holden for instance had just made The Wild Bunch, probably the most violent western ever made at that point in time.

Whilst sadly only lasting one Season, Cade's County certainly played to Ford's strengths by amalgamating the two main genres that he had excelled in over his long career, Westerns and Crime. TV was a logical step for Ford. At 55, he was getting too long in the tooth ti be convincing as a romantic lead and TV at that time was still the bastion of family values and to his audiences,, Ford had always epitomised the all American good guy, (with only a few noticeable exceptions over the years), and his name at the top of the credits of a TV show was bound to be ratings winner.....wasn't it? Well, no.

For some reason Cade's County wasn't the smash hit that people were expecting and I think I can understand why. Although totally enjoyable, The show wasn't anything overly special that audiences couldn't already get from other cop shows of the time. The script's were formulaic, the stories too fleeting to garner any real sympathy with one off characters that weren't part of the nucleus of the main core cast.

What makes Cade's County great is Glenn Ford and Ford alone, but Ford's star quality as good as it always was, was never enough to carry a TV show. He was one cog in the machine, an essential one certainly, but still useless without the cogs that make the machine complete.

Ford is joined by long time friend and frequent collaborator Edgar Buchanan, Ford's own son Peter appears in numerous episodes as a junior deputy and the fantastic plethora of guest stars make it a joy to watch too. Some had been working on and off with Ford for decades such as Edmond O'Brien, Russ Tamblyn, Broderick Crawford. Others were just those great characters you loved to see on your screen such as John Payne, Bobby Darin, William Shatner. No expense seemed to have been spared to make Cade's County a hit, but sadly it never was, but even after over 50 years, it's still worth checking out. I'm not aware of any official release of the series on Video or DVD, but there are episodes dotted about on YouTube if you care to find them, and I highly recommend you do.

Enjoy!

Cade's County was a pretty neat show and should have lasted 5 years on the TV of the early 70's, but, that was back in the big 3 network days when there was no cable for another few years yet, and a show had to have a huge audience and not huge competition (like the Ed Sullivan Show). The theme song and opening credits were really sweet for a TV show - Henry Mancini's best song of all time is definitely the "Theme from Cade's County" and watching Glen Ford jump through the air in the Jeep was pretty slick. The show was filmed in the super high-quality style of Universal Studios or a 20th Century Fox movie - better quality than nearly every TV show on the air today - in my opinion, and was quite impressive. Scripts were pretty good too. Can I suggest we have TV Land or the like, have a marathon running these 'lost' TV shows of the early to mid 70's like Cade's County? Great show, and like I said, the song "Theme from Cade's County" is by far the best toe-tappin' song ever from Henry Mancini. Just like "WKRP in Cincinnati", CBS gave a great show a crummy timeslot and killed it way ahead of its time.