Tombstone

TOMBSTONE TERRITORY-Another TV western that ran from 1957 to 1960 . It took place in Tombstone, Arizona, "the town too tough to die" and was supposedly based on actual stories taken from The Epitaph, the real town newspaper. Pat Conway starred as the swaggering smirking sheriff Clay Hollister who has his hands full keeping law and order while occasionally feeling bad about killing someone. Robert Eastham played Harris Claibourne, the owner of the newspaper and narrator of each episode. The catchy theme song was composed and sung by Richard Backer. Most of the stories aren't too special but of course there are enough guest stars to keep it interesting. They include John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., John Anderson, Anthony Caruso, James Coburn, Jack Elam, Michael Landon, Leonard Nimoy, Angie Dickerson and Elisha Cook.

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Cool TV

 
A TV show I've been watching recently on ME TV is the western WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE starring Steve McQueen as Josh Randall, a tough but not so ruthless bounty hunter who sometimes helped out needy people for free and/or sometimes proved his charges innocent of the crimes they were said to commit. A few episodes have comedic overtones and Randall is kind of a buffoon but usually after killing a man he had some remorse. It ran for three seasons on CBS from 1958-1961.

 I like to watch these kind of shows mainly for the guest stars and WANTED had it's share: DeForest Kelly, Lon Chaney, Warren Oates, Martin Landau, Jay North (in a strange Christmas episode), Michael Landon, John Dehner (in several episodes), Jay Silverheels, John Carradine and James Coburn to name a few. For around a dozen episodes in 1960 Wright King was also featured as fellow bounty hunter Jason Nicholls (he played a different role in an earlier episode), King had a featured role in Elia Kazan's A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE (1951), hosted a TV kid's show JOHNNY JUPITER (1953-54) and was in two episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Later he had a small role as a simian doctor in the original PLANET OF THE APES.

 McQueen of course went on to super stardom with roles in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE, BULLITT and others.

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