TV
WESTERNS GIMMICK GUNS
From the
1950s through the 1960s, TV Westerns dominated our family room televisions.
Every week there were shootouts, saloon brawls, and owlhoots brought to
justice. Certainly far more pretend bullets were fired across TV’s dusty
boomtowns, interchangeable saloon sets, and sagebrush soundstages than were
ever fired for real in the Wild West.
During this
pinnacle of TV Western’s popularity, it was difficult some evenings to find
shows other than Westerns on any of the three major networks. Westerns had been
wholeheartedly embraced by our post-war nation, as if we were yearning for the
simplicity of six-guns, fists, and fast horses, all leading to the comforting
normalcy of white hats clearly triumphing over black hats—something we had lost
in the war along with our innocence.
Each network
labored to make their Westerns stand out from competing shows. TV gunslicks,
lawmen, and drifting cowpokes were all fighting for Nielsen ratings and
commercial sponsors. Many TV Westerns tried to distinguish their hero by giving
him a celebrity horse—Topper (Hopalong Cassidy), Champion (Gene Autry), Diablo
(The Cisco Kid), Target (Annie Oakley), Apache (Lash Larue), Tornado (Zorro),
and others. Sometimes shows had more than one celebrity equine star, as was the
case with Roy Rogers (Trigger) and Dale Evans (Buttermilk), or the Lone Ranger
(Silver) and Tonto (Scout). The more TV Westerns tried to be different, the
more they remained alike.
TV Westerns
also had a passion for celebrity guns. Like celebrity horses, these gimmick
guns were given to TV’s Western heroes in another attempt to make each show
stand out from the competition. Many of the hybrid six-guns and rifles used to
establish law and order on Hollywood’s backlots and sound stages were made by
Ed Stembridge's Gun Room at Paramount Studios. Once created, a show’s celebrity
firearms were treated with great care. However, the majority of onscreen
Western guns were simple blank firing props and subjected to much rough usage.
Quick draw
gun coaches were hired to work with the stars of TV Westerns. These
professionals earned a certain notoriety for their skills, and were paid
handsomely to teach not only the quick draw and its variations, but also simple
gun handling so a star could at least appear somewhat proficient with his fancy
weapon.
THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF WYATT EARP: Arvo Ojala, who worked regularly with
Hugh O’Brian on the set of The Life and
Legend of Wyatt Earp, was among the best of the gun coaches. When The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
premiered, O'Brian initially wore a double holster rig with two 4¾" Colts. However, in the show’s mythology, Earp was gifted with a
with another Colt revolver, this one specially designed with an extended 12” barrel. The gun was called a Buntline
Special, named after dime magazine writer Ned Buntline (a pseudonym for the
prolific Edward Z. Judson) who claimed to have convinced Colt to create it
especially for him. The writer was a real life character, but the tales of his
own adventures were as embellished as those of the real life Western heroes,
like Earp, whom he immortalized with his purple prose.
As cool as it
was, the appearance of the Buntline Special on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp created a number of problems.
O’Brian was a fast draw master in his own right, but dragging out the Buntline
Special’s extended barrel slowed him down considerably. To assist him in
clearing leather with the foot-long barrel an extended drop was added to
O'Brian's right-hand holster. Eventually, gun coach Arvo Ojala perfected a
non-period accurate metal-lined holster. His design permitted the Colt to be
cocked and the cylinder rotated while the gun was still being drawn. This was a
technique unique to Hollywood, but it was so successful that Ojala's holster
was used regularly in most TV Westerns.
Western
historians disagree regarding the actual existence of the Buntline Special,
which Buntline claimed to have made and bestow upon those heroes he thought
worthy. However, if the Buntline Special never actually existed in the Wild
West, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
made the gun so popular, Colt was virtually strong-armed into adding a 12"
Buntline Special to their line in 1957. Colt continued to make the gun for more
than 30 years, outlasting the TV series by decades.
THE RIFLEMAN: Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain used
his famous Model 92 Winchester carbine with large loop and an aluminum barrel
for lighter weight. In the hands of the six foot six inch tall, athletic
Conners, the 1892 carbine performed spectacularly. Using an adjustable screw
threaded into the trigger guard, Conners was able to trip the trigger every
time he slammed the lever home.
Because of
his exceedingly long reach, Conners didn’t need any adjustments made to the
Winchester’s 20” barrel, which made him highly proficient at spin-cocking and
swing-cocking his rifle. Conners was also was ambidextrous, which is why you
see him carrying his carbine alternately in his right or left hand at various
times during the show.
No special
photography was used because Connors was as fast as he looked with his
Winchester, able to crank off ten rounds in an eye-blinking 11.2 seconds. He
can be seen performing this rapid-fire feat at the beginning of every show. If
you count the opening scene shots, however, Conners fires ten times, but the
sound of an extra rifle shot was dubbed in to match the soundtrack.
WANTED—DEAD OR ALIVE: The title of the most famous TV
Western gimmick gun has to be awarded to the highly altered Winchester carried
by Steve McQueen as bounty hunter Josh Randall in Wanted: Dead Or Alive. McQueen, who knew his way around guns,
christened the gun a Mare’s Leg (alternately Mare's Laig) because when it fired
live ammunition it would kick at both ends. The term Mare's Leg was first
coined in a 1957 episode of the TV Western series Trackdown, where Steve McQueen made his debut as bounty hunter Josh
Randall.
To make the
Mare’s Leg, a .44-40 caliber Model 1892 Winchester had its barrel cut back to
nine inches, which had the effect of reducing the magazine capacity to six
rounds. To shorten the gun further, the stock was cut back almost even with the
customized loop lever to make the gun able to be fired with one hand. In
reality, the bizarre gun was an impractical nightmare. Due to the risk of
a deafening and dangerous muzzle blast, the gun could only be fired on
the set using half-load blanks.
The Mare’s
Leg also required a custom holster with a spring-loaded clip that secured the
barrel and allowed McQueen to snap the gun free as fast as any owlhoot could
draw his six-shooter. The Mare's Leg was .44-40 caliber, however, the bullets in
McQueen’s cartridge belt were .45-70 caliber. This anachronism was used because
the .45-70s were more visually impressive than the relatively small rounds used
in the 1892 carbine.
With the
sawn-off barrel, the Mare’s Leg did not have a gunsight, so Hollywood gun coach
Rod Redwing was brought in to teach McQueen the finer aspects of point-shooting
the weapon. The lessons worked. McQueen’s proficiency with the weapon look cool
on screen, but his skill also paid off in real life. During a Pioneer Days celebration
in Palm Springs in 1960, McQueen entered a fast draw contest against other TV
Western stars. McQueen won easily, able to snap his Mare's Leg from its holster
and fan off a shot in a respectable two-fifths of a second, outdrawing James
Arness (Gunsmoke), John Payne (Restless Gun), and Peter Brown (Lawman).
JOHNNY RINGO: Another unusual TV Western gimmick
gun was carried by Johnny Ringo (Don Durant). The gun was a custom-built
revolver called a LeMat and was actually based on its historically authentic
counterpart except for its top break cartridge-fed design. The 19th-century
LeMat was, a nine-shot percussion revolver with a twenty gauge smoothbore
barrel underneath the pistol's barrel. A flip of the firing pin on the hammer
determined which barrel the gun would fire. Many episodes found Ringo getting
into scrapes where that final round in the shotgun barrel was the deciding
factor.
SHOTGUN SLADE: Detective Shotgun Slade (Scott Brady)
did not utilize the normal six-shooter as his weapon of choice. Instead, he
favored an over-and-under combination shotgun-rifle. The lower barrel fired a
12-gauge shotgun shell, while the top barrel fired a.32 caliber rifle bullet,
giving Slade both heavy stopping power at close range and at distance when needed.
HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL: While he was a master of many
weapons, Paladin (Richard Boone) favored his Colt .45 handgun in his black
holster with the trademark silver chess knight in the center. While the gun
wasn’t particularly fancy, it looked huge in the opening sequence, which had
Paladin in an action pose as he turned the gun on the audience. Paladin also
carried a saddle-holstered Winchester lever-action rifle with which he was an
expert marksman. And always one step ahead, Paladin also added a lethal surprise
to his arsenal—a concealed Derringer small bore handgun.
THE REBEL: Johnny Yuma (Nick Adams) was a man
proud of the remnants of his rebel uniform and was often forced to defend
himself against slurs directed at him and the bitter defeat of the South. Using
both his fists, a Civil War style Dragoon pistol in a cut-off Cavalry-flapped
holster and what Yuma called his scattergun—a sawed off double barrel shotgun
altered at both ends, which he usually wore strapped to his leg—as Steve
McQueen did in Wanted: Dead Or Alive.
YANCY DERRINGER: While the dapper Yancy (Jock Mahoney)
carried a four barreled Sharp’s Derringer, his Indian companion Pahoo carried a
short, sawed-off, exposed hammer shotgun similar to the gun used by Johnny Yuma
in The Rebel.
RESTLESS GUN: Vint Bonner (John Payne) used a Colt
.45 caliber with a removable, longer barrel, and a detachable buttstock.
THE SHERIFF OF COCHISE: United States Marshal Frank Morgan
(John Bromfield) was known for the Winchester mounted in a scabbard on the door
of his patrol car.
THE WILD WILD WEST: In what would come to be considered
the first steampunk influence TV Western (even though the term wasn’t coined
until 1980), The Wild Wild West had
gadgets galore. There were exploding belt buckles, a spring-loaded knife blade
in the toe-box of a boot, and so many more.
There were also a number of gimmick
guns including James West’s (Robert Conrad) hidden sleeve gun, a derringer
designed to be broken down and concealed in a boot heel, and a grappling hook
attachment to be shot from a rifle. The
Wild Wild West was the ultimate in gadget cool.
A number of
the original TV Western prop guns have turned up at auction. The real value of
these TV Western guns is not monetary, but to be considered for their
collector’s value, they must have a provenance—usually markings with the name
of the studio. Some of the TV Western prop guns sold at auction
are listed below...
BAT MASTERSON: Carrying a gold-tipped cane with a
hidden sword, TV’s Bat Masterson (Gene Barry) already had a gimmick weapon, but
he also carried a Remington Navy .36 until he switched to a custom .45 caliber Colt
single action with a 3.5” barrel, commissioned for him by the people of Dodge
City during his service as sheriff. The original prop gun sold at auction for
$6,500 in January 2018...
GUNSMOKE: Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness)
was a big man carrying a big gun_ A Colt Model 1873, .45 caliber, single action
handgun, with a 7.5” barrel. The actual TV prop was a real Colt manufactured in
1895 and sold at auction for $50,000 in 2014...
BONANZA: Throughout Bonanza’s long run, Joe
Cartwright (Michael Landon) carried a Colt single action .38 special. The prop
original sold at auction for $12,000 in 2011...
TALES OF WELLS FARGO: Special agent Jim Hardie (Dale
Robertson) carried a Colt Frontier single action revolver. The original prop
gun from the show sold at auction for $2,800 in 2011...
Excellent article. I didn't know about that fast draw competition. Very cool. I sure did want Josh Randall's lever action pistolchester. but even then I knew it was highly unpractical.
ReplyDeleteBack in '57 or '58 I was had a double rig with two six guns with turquoise grips. For my birthday I got a Buntline Special. I remember pulling out my right-hand pistol and being pleasantly surprised when the Buntline slipped right into the holster. My next move was to slip my old right-hand pistol under the gunbelt by the small of my back.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article.
ReplyDeleteApparently Colt says their records show something like 6 Buntlines made "during the day" but many more of course since the Wyett Earp TV show.
I often wonder if he would be as well known had he not been the information source for some of the early western movies made in the 1920s.
In my novels I mention a variety of firearms and have presented them, along with pictures, on my blog on occasion.
Take a look at the following sites;
The tools presented in The Great Liquor War and Homesteader
https://dmmcgowan.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-tools-presented-in-glw-and_25.html
The tools presented in Partners
https://dmmcgowan.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-tools-presented-in-partners.html
Tools NOT in my novels
https://dmmcgowan.blogspot.com/2016/01/tools-not-in-my-novels.html
Paul, Kelo Henderson was titled "World's fastest gunslinger". In his day he taught several in Hollywood you had mention. Look him up, he's still alive today living in an nursing home. I just saw him.
ReplyDeleteMasterson had one other option put in on one of his shows. Bad guy took a woman and wanted Masterson to come after him but couldn't carry a rifle so he went up after the guy with a gold headed cane that was made of a rifle barrel needless to say he got the sucker.
ReplyDelete