User Reviews

HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL "The Colonel and the Lady" 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 11th the series, Boone is hired by a retired Army officer for a job. The man, Robert F Simon, is writing a book on the old west, and needs Boone to do a spot of detective work for him. He sends Boone to Lodestar, a mining town out in the middle of nowhere. He is to seek information on a particular woman. The stories seem to suggest she was of less than stellar character.

Boone however has trouble gathering any info on the woman. He is told to leave town at gunpoint and told never to return. Of course he pops back in using his own gun to root out some info. It turns out that the woman he is looking into was far from a "fallen woman". She was a hero that had saved most of the town during a cholera epidemic.

Boone sees a picture of the woman and realizes that it is the wife, June Vincent, of the man who hired him. Boone returns to Simon with the info but tells him that the woman in question was a true hero and anything else he heard was a lie.

This is an interesting story which plays out more like a straight detective tale than a western.

Terrific episode has Paladin hired to find out about a woman named Gloria Morgan. He goes to the town of Lodestar, where everyone is determined to send him on his way, including Denver Pyle as Summers. The whole town wants to protect the secret of Gloria Morgan and Paladin is determined to find out the real story.

Well written mystery that is well acted by a terrific cast. Pyle is about as far from the head of the Darling clan (from "The Andy Griffith Show") as can be here. He does a nice job revealing why he feels the way he does about Morgan. Ditto Robert F. Simon, who had a whole career playing retired military officers and the like. He's solid as Lathrop, paladin's client.

And most outstanding is the very attractive Faye Nuell, who plays the loyal Lathrop housekeeper. She's hot blooded and pulls a knife on Paladin at one point, only to be disarmed and kissed (you can't blame either Paladin or Boone for kissing this vixen!) Apparently her career never really took off however.

The only problem with this show is the continuity. Keep an eye on Paladin's shirt when he gets ambushed in Lodestar. In the close up, his shirt is drenched with water. Then in the master, only his pants are wet. Then they cut to the close up and the shirt is soaked again. In the next scene they remember to soak the shirt for the close ups as paladin leaves town, but in the master it is dry again!

Not only is this a detective story - but one suspects its script has actually been under strong influence of Raymond Chandler's stories. There is a retired high officer entrusting a seasoned private dick, Paladin/Marlowe, with an unusually shady mission on a sensitive and embroiled family matter, in the course of which it will come to light that the truth is quite far from what was suspected - reminds us of The Big Sleep? And there is an elusive lady, the target of the investigation, which far from having fully disappeared as seemed to be the problem, is actually close, very close - you said Farewell my Lovely? All the same, it is an original story, and quite a strong one - despite a few loose ends. Whereas in Chandler's story there were very strong justifications for the efforts made to prevent Marlowe at all costs from discovering the whereabouts of the missing lady, it is much less clear here why Sommers and his rival Steve, helped by mostly everybody, would be so dead obstinate about shutting out Paladin from any information on Gloria Morgan. Yes, they had a strong crush on her, and might never have fully recovered from her rejection - but it took place a good many years ago, are they still so sensitive about it that Gloria Morgan's name and story have become taboo? A bit hard to believe. As to Tuolumne, the rather strange-behaving maid, she is charming but her character does not make much sense : for instance she makes up a story that the colonel might try to bring in Gloria Morgan, supposedly a former mistress of his, just to torture his wife - whereas she knows full well that Morgan and the wife are one and the same, so it is an elaborate but slightly absurd story to mislead Paladin, if that is indeed her intention.

This episode confirms Paladin's West Point background. In the opening scene, Paladin read an advertisement requesting assistance specifically targeted at his talents. He accepts the assignment and investigates a woman purported to have been a dance hall madam.

During filming of the laundry scenes there were visitors on the set. There were only 4 silver dollar props which Paladin gave to LuLu and which she dropped into her cleavage. Peggy Rea, the actress, later told the story of how she had trouble retrieving the props from her brassiere. Richard Boone helped her fish them out. The visitors were shocked and appalled by this view of Hollywood and television.

Paladin's Horse: Bay with front white stockings and a white face stripe.

Paladin's Gear: Ruffled shirt with striped suit, bow tie, formal white evening suit with vest, black concha hat, black Western shirt open at the neck, black trousers, black holster with Colt, a single shot derringer. The spurs are back in this episode.

Paladin Shoots: No one.

Deaths: 0 Paladin's Total Kills: Manfred Holt, Jailbreak Team 3, Miguel Rojas, Strome's lackey Total Kills: 6