Cheyenne: The First Season

(Part II of my post)

The DVD of the first season of Cheyenne shows us the beginning of all this success. The Warner’s westerns were not ensemble shows. They tended to feature a single regular character and so one’s memory of the show is based on one’s image of the lead actor and the character he played. James Garner and Jack Kelly were deft actors, equally good at dramatic or comic situations. Their characters were gamblers and occasional con men. It creates an image of a clever and innovative series, which “Maverick” was. Will Hutchins was a Jimmy Stewart type, easy to underestimate but quietly competent. That was the image of “Sugarfoot”. Clint Walker was a big, muscular, straight forward kind of guy and it left me with an image of “Cheyenne” as being a solid but unimaginative western. A look at these DVD episodes and it seems a lot more sophisticated than that, as it would have to be to have the impact on television history that it did.

Walker is not a dynamic actor but he is a strong presence. He’s sure a guy you’d want on your side in a fight. His simplicity comes off as simple integrity rather than stupidity. He does just fine as the hero. James Arness and Chuck Conners were probably as tall but Clint was more broad-shouldered and had that “V” shaped torso that is very impressive- perhaps a bit too impressive for a cowpoke. As with Arness and Connors, actors had to be cast so they wouldn’t look like midgets next to the hero. The one guy they found who could match Clint is size is Don Megowan, who plays the corrupted sheriff in “Star in the Dust”. But Don is more “H” shaped than “V” shaped. The one other “V” shaped actor in these episodes is Leo Gordon, the perennial bad guy who wound up writing episodes of this and other series. But Leo at 6-2 is a smaller size than the 6-6 Clint. There are several scenes where Clint gets beat up but they lack credibility.

One thing that I wonder about: Cheyenne is obviously a man of great strength and ability and high moral values. Why is he just a drifter, going from job to job? Why doesn’t he have and keep a position of responsibility? When Megowan tells him he just wasn’t cut out to be a law man, you have to ask: “Why not?” Walker makes a solid action hero but he doesn’t appear to be a driven, tortured soul. The famous musical theme describes a brooding loner that Walker never really conveys. That theme, by the way, is missing from this first year, except over the opening credits. Instead we get a jaunty, music hall ditty that doesn’t really cut it. If they’d already written the music, why not use it over the credits? Also missing is those wonderful drawings of the hero over the opening credits and of a scene from the show over the closing credits. They began the next year. (Is it just my twisted mind or does every face look like Leo Gordon?)

There are several interesting actors who turn up in these shows. LQ Jones, (Justus Ellis McQueen, who played a character named L Q Jones in “Battle Cry” earlier this same year and decided to keep the name), is Cheyenne’s comic side-kick “Smitty” in three of the first four episodes. He then disappears as it was realized that no comic sidekick was needed for this type of show. James Garner is in no less than three of the 15 episodes, two as a cavalry officer, one as a preacher, (of all things). Dennis Hopper shows up in one episode as “The Utah” kid, a would-be Billy the Kid who finds he is no match for Mr. Bodie. Michael Landon makes what might be his debut in front of the cameras as an appropriately nervous soldier in “Decision”, my pick for the best episode of this first season.

The show is less than the normal 50 minutes as Warner Brothers inserted interviews to hype it's upcoming movies within "Warner Brothers Presents". But the production values are great, with plenty of location shooting. That and the "busy" plots and the action content gives one the impression of watching a movie rather than a TV when an episode is over, despite the brevity. In some cases, (see below), we are. Not only are plots from movies reused but much of that good looking footage was shot for films and incorporated, (seemlessly), into this show. That's why Cheyenne keeps changing his outfit- to match the stock footage- rather than sticking with the buckskin shirt that later became standard. Bodie has quite a wardrobe in this first season. You wonder where he packs it all?

It’s the stories that really made the show special. Warner’s began their habit of editing down the plots of famous movies and redoing them as episodes of their TV series. Here we get “The Argonauts”, which is a redo of “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, (which had come out just seven years before), with Cheyenne replacing the Walter Huston character. Then, later, come “Fury at Rio Hondo”, a remake of “To Have and Have Not” with Cheyenne as Bogie and the tragic but wonderful Peggy Castle, (she drank herself to death at age 45) in the role that introduced Lauren Bacall. Bogart was still alive when these episodes aired. I wonder if he and “Baby” might have watched them. I wonder what they thought of them if they did?

There may have been other episodes based on lesser known movies, (I wonder about the final one- “The Last Train West”, where Cheyenne- uncharacteristically- is out to kill someone for revenge and has to be talked out of it). But I think the best episodes are the ones that were written for the show. They seem the most complete with the actions seeming more natural and appropriate to the character. Cheyenne isn’t “Howard”, (the Walter Huston character), and Clint Walker isn’t Humphrey Bogart. Someone, (I think it may have been Roy Huggins), once said that there are only six plots in westerns. The episodes of this first season of Cheyenne run the gauntlet of these plots but there is usually something “extra” in them. “The Storm Riders” has a Shane-like big rancher vs. small rancher/farmer plot but turns into (Lady) MacBeth as a rancher’s wife, (played by the superb Beverly Michaels), kills her husband and goes insane. “Johnny Bravo” reverses the plot as a powerful rancher deals with evil squatters while trying to use Cheyenne to break up the “Romeo and Juliet” romance between his daughter and a hated Mexican.

But the best episode is “Decision”, with Ray Teal and Richard Denning excellent as cavalry officers with serious limitations. Teal has lost his courage and dignity in a bottle but still maintains his authority. Denning, a brave and intelligent fighter, realizes Teal is incompetent, but has too rigid a belief in the command structure to do anything about it. James Garner, with Cheyenne’s help, leads a mutiny, (combine the Denning and Garner characters and this is “Mutiny on the Bounty”). Teal is killed. Garner saves the column from the Indians, Denning comes to realize there is more to being an officer than giving and following commands and Cheyenne moves on.