Richard Boone in 1967 Episode of TV's Cimarron Strip with Stuart Whitman: "The Roarer"

I've recounted my favorite Richard Boone movie performances elsewhere on this thread(and elsewhere) and I'll recount them here:

Rio Conchos(1964)
Hombre(1967)
The Kremlin Letter(1970)
Big Jake(1971)
The Shootist(1976)
Winter Kills (1979)

and one TV movie : Goodnight, My Love(1971)

It is my contention that Boone in movies was too "serious" an actor before Rio Conchos; and frankly, his film roles after Big Jake were mainly cameos and he didn't look too great. But that group from 1964 to 1979 were "Boone Gold."

And I kinda/sorta forgot one:

Stuart Whitman, Boone's co-star in "Rio Conchos," in 1967 cashed out his so-so career as a movie leading man and went to TV with the 90-minute "epic Western series" Cimarron Strip. I didn't much watch the series as a kid, but I was aware of it, and how both "Movie Star Whitman" and the 90-minute format were meant to make it "bigger than usual."

It took decades and the emergence of many-channel cable TV -- and eventually YouTube -- for me to find out that Richard Boone himself took a "guest star" part on Cimarron Strip in 1967. Perhaps it was a favor to his "Rio Conchos" co-star Whitman, but we ended up with two of the four stars of "Rio Conchos" on screen together again, in somewhat lessened circumstances.

The episode is called "The Roarer," and that is certainly what Richard Boone plays here: a big(I mean BIG) , brawling, ROARING uniformed cavalry man(not an officer) who makes so much trouble at his fort/base and with local townspeople that he faces hard labor and/or hanging. His "old buddy" Sheriff Stuart Whitman, has to try to save him.

It is interesting that Boone did The Roarer in 1967, because by then he was more of a movie star than a TV star; Hombre had come out that year and he would soon be working with Marlon Brando in The Night of the Following Day. Boone WAS a movie star, now -- but he still did Cimarron Strip.

Much of "The Roarer" is pretty standard; the dialogue really isn't up to Boone's talent, though his lines seem better than everyone else's -- including Robert Duvall,bland and bald and colorless as he would often be before the movies gave him more personality.

Duvall is the "little man" leading the townsfolk against Boone, and its a tough comparison of the two actors at the time -- Boone is robust; Duvall fades into the woodwork . Duvall would actually need a few years to get True Grit and The Godfather to develop some personality...and all the way to 1989 to get "a Richard Boone part" in Lonesome Dove.

Meanwhile, back at The Roarer: Boone's best scene comes about halfway through, when his hunted man enters the empty town saloon to sit down with Whitman and two series co-stars: a cute young man(Randy Boone, evidently a relation) and a cute young woman(blonde, British, I can't remember her name.)

The plot set up: Boone is supposed to have turned himself in for his "crimes" but ran. And he is NOT supposed to have returned to town. But he does, to hang out in the empty, closed saloon and to confront Whitman.

The two young co-stars get the saloon to themselves to start the scene, and we realize that they are barely up to the job of holding interest. (Though both are cute.) Enter Boone -- about twice the size of both of them, resplendent in his dust-covered cavalry uniform and flap hat(rather like Duke's in Rio Bravo), and pointing and gesticulating with the trademark Boone precision.

Eventually, Boone takes a seat at a table with the young co-stars, and gets a series of close-ups where he gets to do other "Boone trademark" things; smile(that great grin); snort; laugh hard(what one poster has called "Boone's dirty laugh") and take his voice down low or up hard as the mood takes him. He tosses borderline harassment lines at the cute British woman(but this was 1967; they are harmless.)

Enter Stuart Whitman, the star. While its good to see Boone and Whitman together again, Whitman's lines are poor and his delivery is ATROCIOUS. He's meant to be exasperated and disgusted that his "old friend" Boone has returned to town, and he's meant to be desperate to convince Boone to turn himself in. But all Boone wants -- this being an old TV Western -- is a fist-fight. For the fun of it. So we have Whitman overacting and yelling at the top of his lungs at Boone, while Boone does his "cool cat thing" and acts poor Whitman off the screen.

But yeah, they have a fight. Its TV, and its silly, and its fun and...soon Duvall and his mob show up.

The Roarer moves on to some climactic scenes that allow Boone some real power and even a little poetry(its like the TV screenwriter writes good lines ONLY for Boone -- maybe a movie screenwriter was shipped in to help.) The ending is (SPOILER) ....(SPOILER)...(SPOILER)...tragic.