Saint Nick of Time
By ice rivers
- 405 reads
I'm coming down from yet another moment of Christmas magic. Let me tell ya about it before I forget.
Under the influence, memory and recommendation of Thornton Krell, wherever he is, I have become a long time fan of Have Gun Will Travel. Any fan of Have Gun Will Travel is also a fan of Richard Boone that paladin, that knight without armor in a savage land, that fast gun for hire.
In the late fifties on teevee we had Twilight Zone on Fridays and "adult" westerns on Saturday nights. Gunsmoke with the heroic Marshall Matt Dillon, his limping pal Chester and Matt's "friend"Miss Kitty who was the proprieterix of the Longbranch Saloon trying to enforce the law in Dodge City. Every episode of Gunsmoke began with a showdown on Main Street with Matt beating a bad guy to the draw. Leading into Gunsmoke was Have Gun Will Travel, the story of a soldier of fortune whose gun was for hire if the cause was just. HGWT began with the unforgettable Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp music and a close up of a black holster. Paladin would draw his gun from that holster and point it directly at the audience and utter a line from the upcoming show, after which he would shove his gun back into his holster and the camera would zoom in on the insignia on his holster, the chess piece called a knight. Nobody ever knew Paladin's real name.
Once upon a time someone tried to tell me his name was Wire Paladin because those words were written on his calling cards. Clearly, that someone didn't have a real grip on the show.
Paladin was always dressed in black and he had a moustache which flew in the face of good guy/ bad guy stereo types. If a guy looking like Paladin had ever stopped into the Long Branch Saloon, he would immediately become a threat to Dodge city and a showdown would surely have followed. More than a few neighborhood fist fights were engendered over who would win that showdown which of course could never be proven with anything other than label talk and bullshit.
Because Paladin liked to quote Shakespeare, HGWT was regarded as the more "artistic" of the two shows.
Always of particular fascination are the episodes of HGWT that were directed by the man himself....Richard Boone, the terror of Stanford, the hunter of the Last Dinosaur.
Today I was watching MeTv which specializes in showing teevee shows from the fifties. Actually, I was dipping into my taped collection of 22 episodes of HGWT. I have to be in a particularly nostalgic mood to dip into the collection as I have so much bad news and recorded sports to watch on teevee and so little time.
I randomly fired up an episode entitled approximately Save Room for Strangers. That isn't the real title but it's about as close as I can come as I accidentally (and sadly) erased the episode after viewing it . My intention was to recap the story while re-watching it so that I could render all of the details exactly but since the sad erasure, I'm gonna have to go with my memory.
Save Room for Strangers begins with Paladin wearing a heavy jacket and riding into a small town on a freezing evening. He ties his horse up next to a saloon. Even while outside the saloon, Paladin can hear the raucous, drunken behavior going on in the inside.
When Paladin enters the saloon, he trips over the body of a drunken man who has blacked out while blocking out the swinging doors of the saloon. The place is completely packed. Everybody is drinking hand over hand. Paladin stops for a moment to check out the drunk in the doorway and in that instant he is approached by a prostitute eager to do business with our hero. Paladin rejects the advance of the blonde floozie named Annie. He heads to the bar where he refuses some rotgut whiskey from an ornery, unwelcoming barkeep. Paladin is looking for a room but the barkeep, a guy named Jake, informs Paladin that the place is full and there is no room particularly for a stranger. Paladin is immediately wary but first things first.....he needs something warm to eat. Jake informs Paladin that the kitchen is closed, the only thing available is some stew, which "ain't too good but at least it's hot."
Paladin looks for an empty table and heads for it but he's beaten to the table by a blotto bearded bum who decides to tap dance on the table in his barefeet while the patrons gather around him, encouraging his ribald behavior.
Finally Paladin locates the only other available table at which sits an older gentleman wearing a top who has a bunch of wrapped Christmas presents on the table. Paladin asks the old guy who the presents are for and Mr. Top Hat tells Paladin that the gifts are for himself....he buys and wraps them every year to give to his kids who have grown up and abandoned him just in case they miraculously show up which they haven't done in decades.
Paladin begins to slurp his stew when a young cowboy enters the bar and gets pushed into Paladin who spills the stew all over himself and Mr. Top Hat. Paladin reflexively goes for his gun but the young cowboy is quick to apologize.
Here's the first shock.
The cowboy is played by Duane Eddy. Duane Eddy is/was a guitarist who was at the time of the making of the episode going through the teen idol phase of his career. I had seen Duane live at a rock and roll show in Rochester in which I heard an electric guitar for the first time in my life, a sound that I'm sure changed my destiny. This was about the time that teen stars like Frankie Avalon, Fabian and Rick Nelson were getting movie and teevee gigs too bring in "the kids"
I was kid then now I'm more like the guy in the Top Hat except for the fact that my kids have stuck with me and I with them. Last week I was in Boston having Thanksgiving with one of my daughters and five of our grandchildren and the day after that I went with another daughter to pick out her Christmas tree.
My daughter is into vinyl these days and as we decorated her tree we went through her album collection which is mainly the remains of my album collection. We pulled out the first album that I ever bought which happened to be "The Twangs the Thang" by Duane Eddy on the Jamie label.
Oh where was I?
Oh yeah
Duane needs a room but the bartender/owner tells Duane that he has no room available.
Duane goes out into the freezing night and Paladin follows him. In his stage coach is Duane's wife who is beginning to go into labor. Paladin recognizes the situation and assures Duane that he will get a room in the frontier dive.
He goes up to the owner and explains the situation to the unsympathetic barkeep who asks Paladin who the hell he thinks he is coming into this town and pushing everybody around. At this point Paladin takes out his famous business card....HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL( BOMP BOMP BOMP BOMP). The barkeep is intimidated and says he's got a stockroom in the back. Paladin, Duane and the very pregnant wife head for the stockroom which is tiny, cluttered with junk and filthy but the best anybody can do at the moment.
Once he gets the young couple into the stockroom, Paladin returns to the bar where he is once again propositioned by yet another prostitute. He tries to locate the town doctor but is informed that the doctor is the guy blacked out by the door who once a year comes into town, gets totally wasted and can not be revived no matter how much coffee gets poured into him. Paladin wonders if there had ever been a time when the doctor was needed so desperately while on his "vacation". The bartender said "Yeah, Just once and the guy died."
Paladin fires his gun in the bar which gets everybody's attention. The reason Paladin had to use his gun was because another guy was trying to draw on him and Paladin had to shoot the cigar out of his mouth before throwing the guy over the blacked out doctor and into the freezing street. On his ass in the street, the cigarless guy looks up at Paladin and drnkenly observes, "I didn't know you was sweet on Annie.", which Paladin isn't.
Having gained the attention of the out of control joint, Paladin begins to describe the labor going on in the stockroom asking for help and quoting from the bible. Another drunken bum walks up to Paladin and accuses Paladin of having his "halo on too tight" which almost causes another gunfight until the bum backs down to the sound of BOMP< BOMP< BOMP.
Paladin now appeals to the womanhood/ maternal instinct of the two other prostitutes in the bar, including Annie who is getting her neck licked by yet another intoxicated townie.
The appeal works and Annie decides to go into the stockroom and help out even though "she doesn't know what she's doing."
Paladin returns to the bar and fetches some whiskey and the ubiquitous hot water. He comes into the stockroom where Duane's wife is into serious labor and he pours three or four shots direct from the bottle down her throat assuring her that this elixir will "help her with the pain."
He leaves the room for a minute and when he comes back, the baby has been safely delivered. Annie is agog with wonder. She helped. Duane's wife is radiant. She promised him a son.
The riot outside the stockroom has quieted down. The townfolk, embarrassed about their behavior take up a collection. The barkeep comes into the stock room and gives the money "not much" to the mother while Duane beams with pride while holding his newborn son delivered on Christmas eve during the first dawning moments of Christmas Eve.
The Top Hat guy joyfully hands over his packages to the mother, observing that the gifts might not "be appropriate" but at least he won't be giving them to himself again while the guy who questioned the tightness of Paladin's halo barges in with a huge Christmas tree.
Paladin smiles his smile. He heads for the door. On the way out, he takes one last look at the"doctor". The doctor has a blanket around him which Paladin removes and puts over his own broad shoulders as he gets on his horse, apparently leaving his expensive jacket behind in exchange for the blanket. Paladin as a gift. Paladin heads out of town when he sees a sign which identifies the town....Betlehem Texas. The gunfighter nods in ironic approval and rides away at which point I hit delete and started worrying that if I didn't run downstairs and start writing this recap, I wouldn't remember it.
Obviously I got to the keyboard in the saint nick of time
- Log in to post comments
Comments
I don't think I ever saw Have
I don't think I ever saw Have Gun, Will Travel, though I've heard of it. We certainly had Wagon Train, Rawhide, Bonanza (at the age of ten I was in love with Adam Cartwright) and most others. Happy memories of watching Laramie when I was very young.
The Twilight Zone was one of my formative experiences. Could account for a lot.
Thanks for this, Ice - it was a great read.
- Log in to post comments