Have Keyboard Will Write.
By ice rivers
- 256 reads
For much of its early years, teevee was regarded by some as a "vast wasteland". Richard Boone was a pioneer of the burgeoning oasis that was first created in his weekly teevee show Medic in which he played the sober sided Dr. Konrad Styner. The show was nominated for two Emmys. The six foot two inch Boone was deluged with fan mail, mostly from women, asking for medical advice. Boone chafed under the restrictions of playing one role and wanted more control of his character.He quit Medic and was offered the lead role in a new and "adult" Western called Have Gun Will Travel. The role was offered at first to Randolph Scott who, thank God, turned down the opportunity. Boone accepted under the conditions that he would have more influence on his character and would direct occasional episodes.
Adult westerns were becoming a "thing". Saturday nights featured the hit series Gun Smoke which opened with the same showdown every week.. Have Gun Will Travel became the lead in to Matt Dillon and Doc and Kitty and Chester. The idea worked and CBS began to dominate Saturday night viewing for many years.
Have Gun was an immediate hit with Boone playing the role of Palladin named after the knights errant of Charlemagne. Palladin was a fast shooting, poetry spouting gunman who for 255 episodes carried a card called "Have Gun Will Travel" from which the title of the series was taken.
Back in the day, a teevee series had 39 episodes half hour shows a year. Each episode of HGWT was a mini-morallity play with the educated, articulate and civilized Paladin being paid to right wrongs on pilgramages through the "savage land", away from his genteel life in San Francisco. Palladin was not always paid. Someitmes he worked for free in his labors in the name of justice and thus "morality". Often, as in reality, jusgtice was a slippery slope.
Every show began with Paladin in dark full body profile drawing his gun from his holster and aiming it directly at the audience with a brief monologue added which became a prologue to the action. The morality and action of the show had a tremendous effect on the minds of youg baby boomers emerging from Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy.
The show was a tremendous immediate success but after five years as the intellectual "soldier of fortune with his fast gun for hire",Boone had grown tired of his character. He demanded more money for his efforts. CBS offered Boone $1,110, 000 for another three years and promised Boone even more control over his character. Even with this motivation, Boone left the show after completing his sixth season. He remained a critic of television as a "waste of time" and producers who ruined a lot of good shows strictly for the money. Boone told teevee Richard Shickle "you have to use the power you acquire to protect the integrity of what you're doing and to do that, you must be prepared to go all the way. (Current Biography 1964)
Thornton Krell became a fan and student of Have Gun Will Travel. I becmae a fan and student of Thornton Krell. I loved Have Gun Will Travel but didn't appreciate the morality and intellectual element within the episodes until I became a teacher. For decades it has been almost impossible to watch reruns of Hvae Gun as the show was tied up in legal boondoggles. Within the past five years, it has become available on MEtv. I have become obsessecd with the show and with Boone. I've already shared some of my obsession in previous writings. I intend to go further. I hope you will come along with me as I examine more closely one of the more interseting and influential shows in the history of television.
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