HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL "Show of Force" 1957
HAVE GUN – WILL TRAVEL was a Western series that ran on television between 1957 and 1963. The series was very popular and was always in the top ten of the television ratings. The series ran for a total of 225 episodes. Richard Boone headlines as "Paladin", a gun for hire, if the cause is right. Working out of San Francisco, Boone places ads in newspapers offering his services. $1,000 and he is your man. While handy with a gun or fists, he tries to settle the problem without violence. (Not very successfully as a general rule)
In this episode, the 9th the series, Boone is up late in San Francisco enjoying a high stakes poker game. Luck is on his side as he cleans up at the table. One of the other players, Ned Glass, puts up a box of 50 rifles he has against a $1000 wager from Boone. Boone wins this game as well.
The next day when he checks the goods, he finds that the rifles are all old 1830's style muskets and more or less worthless. He has been had! Later in the day Boone reads a newspaper story about a dispute in cattle country south of San Fran. It looks like a possible range war is brewing over the ownership of a piece of land.
Boone sends off a letter to each of the parties involved, Rodolfo Acosta and Russ Conway. He offers the rifles to both sides. (Without saying that they are worthless) Boone takes the rifles by buckboard, first, out to the ranch of Russ Conway. Things don't go well as Boone takes an instant dislike to Conway. When Boone decides to move onto Acosta's ranch, guns are drawn and Boone needs to fling a little lead to escape. Acosta and his brother, Peter Coe, have papers showing that they own the land in question. Boone of course offers to help the brothers out.
There is now a bit where the brothers think Boone is pulling a scam after they see the state of the firearms. Boone soon talks the two into going with a plan of his. They are going to fool the Conway bunch that they are out-gunned. They set up all the old rifles behind rocks and it looks like an army is waiting when Conway rides up. Boone now applies a few knuckle persuaders to Conway's head and has him sign a letter stating that Acosta and Coe do indeed own the land.
Boone returns to San Francisco with a fistful of loot from the happy as punch brothers.
Not good, but not bad either, the comedy bits with Ned Glass did not work for me. But, having said that, the episode is still a watchable half hour time-waster.
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