Product Description

HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL follows the story of professional gunfighter Paladin who, after the Civil War, settles into San Francisco's Hotel Carlton where he awaits responses to his business card. Upon receipt of $1,000, Paladin will leave his suite to chase down whatever mission of mercy or justice his clients commission. Featuring a photo of a white knight chess piece, the business card simply says "Have Gun - Will TravelWire Paladin, San Francisco."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12605 in DVD
• Brand: BOONE,RICHARD
• Released on: 2005-05-10
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Subtitled, Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: 1.14 pounds
• Running time: 993 minutes

Amazon.com
Episode for episode, the second season of Have Gun, Will Travel (1958-59) is even better than the first. With a bona fide hit on their hands, CBS didn't mess with success, and these 39 episodes pushed ratings even higher with sharp direction (mostly by first-season veteran Andrew V. McLaglen), a wide variety of attention-grabbing plots, and intelligent, sensible dialogue. All of the first season's strengths are carried over, and while 41-year-old star Richard Boone (as the refined gunslinger-for-hire Paladin) is rarely given a serious test of his talents, he commands his role with depth, humor, and impressive displays of physical agility. (By comparison, series regular Kam Tong had almost nothing to do this season; he's relegated to routine duty as Paladin's Chinese hotel valet "Hey Boy.") Future Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hit his stride this season, writing nearly a dozen episodes including the playfully spooky "The Monster of Moon Ridge," and other contributors included novelist Irving Wallace and Bruce Geller, who would later create Mission: Impossible! And while McLaglen helmed the vast majority of episodes, Have Gun set a TV milestone when Ida Lupino (with "The Man Who Lost," featuring Jack Elam) became the first woman to direct for a TV Western series.

The "Wire Paladin" production notes provided with each episode are thoroughly researched, providing extensive guest-star credits and making wide-ranging connections between Have Gun and many other TV series, films, and serials of the '40s, '50s, and '60s, especially Roddenberry's Star Trek. Among the noteworthy guest stars are Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bronson, Harry Morgan, Joseph Calleia, Harry Carey Jr., Suzanne Pleshette, Morey Amsterdam, Vincent Price, Edward Platt, and many stalwart character players from TV's golden age. The season starts well with "The Manhunter" (in which Paladin is forced to kill a young gunman and faces the wrath of his vengeful family), and Paladin's unique brand of frontier justice is memorably dispensed (along with generous quotes from Shakespeare, Milton, etc.) in such highlights as "The Man Who Wouldn't Talk" (with Bronson), "The Ballad of Oscar Wilde," "The Moor's Revenge" (with Price), "The Scorched Feather" (with Chaney) and several others. The opening credits are slightly modified as the season progresses, and Paladin's travels take him into the mountains (for some outdoor adventures late in the season) and even to Alaska, the series' most distant destination. Image quality suffers in later episodes (some mastered from vintage kinescopes or murky syndication prints), but the fact that all 39 episodes are fully intact is a blessing to anyone with fond recollections of this superior TV Western. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

A knight without armor in a savage land
Richard Boone stars as Paladin in this six-disk dvd set of the first season of HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL (1957-1958).
CBS broadcast an incredible thirty-nine episodes that first season, each episode lasting 23 to 25 minutes. Most episodes begin with the spiffily dressed Paladin (we're never given a last name) scouring the thick stacks newspapers brought to him by the ever helpful Hey Boy (Kam Tong), bellboy at Paladin's residence, the Carlton Hotel in San Francisco. Eventually Paladin reads of a missing child in Colorado, or a rash of robberies occurring in Montana. Paladin slips his business card - a chess knight with the legend Have Gun, Will Travel, Wire Paladin, San Francisco - into an envelope and mails it to the injured party.
Slowly enough as we wend our way through the first year we learn something of Paladin. He has a passion for justice and a taste for the good things. His going rate is $1000, although he will take on a pro bono job if the cause is just. In town he dresses to the nines and in sundry other ways consumes conspicuously. When traveling with a gun he dresses in black. Somewhere along the line he picked up a military education, quotes Shakespeare and Pliny, savors a first-edition of Dryden. His taste in and knowledge of fine wines is commented upon in a couple of episodes....
I don't know if any of this matters, but going through fifteen hours of HGWT over a week or so it's kind of fun to have an aha moment or two. Paladin is an enigma, and Boone, a little more credible as the gunslinger than the city dandy, was an inspired choice to play him. Boone has a commanding presence and, believe me when I tell you buckaroos, was pretty darn quick on the draw.
Twenty-three minutes is a pretty tight box to fit a action story in, which might explain why we don't waste a whole lot of time on Paladin's backstory. Of course, the storytelling is made a lot easier when you consider the talent involved. The talent rundown has to start with Boone, who was nominated Best Leading Actor as Paladin in 1959 and 1960. The great majority of the first season episodes were directed by action veteran Andrew McLaglen (son of actor Victor McLaglen), although a couple were helmed by Oscar winning director Lewis Milestone. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wrote a few scripts for the first season as well. Sam Peckingpah even co-wrote one episode (The Singer).
The talent in front of the camera was as formidable as that behind. Major established stars like Victor McLaglen and John Carradine appeared in episodes - weak ones, in my opinion, especially the McLaglen episode (directed by son Andrew) in which the old actor played a construction foreman threatening to cut a town off from its source of water. McLaglen simply wasn't getting around very briskly and it's a little painful to watch. Another major movie star fares much better. Charles Bronson wasn't established yet, but he plays a robber who more or less forces Paladin into a gunfighting showdown in an episode that paints fatal violence as both regrettable and, sometimes, unavoidable. Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke) appears in two episodes, once as an unscrupulous frontier lawyer and earlier in a more affecting role as a high wire walker who'd lost his nerve somewhere along the way. Warren Oates plays one of the bad offspring in a truncated take on King Lear.
That's just the beginning. Future television stars appear in almost every episode. Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker (Bonanza) appear as scruffy tough guys in relatively small roles in separate episodes. Jack Lord (Hawaii 5-0) is a cowardly kidnapper. June Lockhart (Lassie, Lost In Space) appears twice as a frontier doctor. Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) plays a young woman whose brother was murdered and threatens to incite a lynch mob. Mike Connors (Mannix) plays a cattle rustling bad guy in one of the early episodes.
Okay, I'm enthusing here. Still haven't got to the best stuff. What gave me the biggest kick was watching the people I'd never heard of. Peter Whitney, who the intro blurb that precedes each episode tells us made a film career out of playing slow-witted big guys and menacing big guys, plays a mentally challenged ranch hand who's goaded into placing a burr under boss's Stuart Whitman's saddle, with dire consequences, in "The Last Laugh." The diminutive B-western star Bob Steele plays a crooked mine boss in "The High Graders" - the Wire Paladin blurb tells us Steele had developed a quick draw during his B-career, which McLaglen pays homage to in a draw down between his character and Paladin. My favorite discovery, though, has to be Marian Seldes, a tremendous actress who is featured in two episodes. First as a mail order bride who Paladin escorts to her new home in "The Bride" and later as a small town teacher who the local bullies try to intimidate in "The Teacher."
Very strongly recommended, especially for fans of traditional westerns.

Classic western with Boone firmly in control
Richard Boone was one of the most natural actors ever to grace the screen. Good guys, bad guys, he did them all with such a grace and ease that he made it seem so effortless. Paladin was a product of the post-Civil War. A West Point Graduate, he was an educated man, a man who appreciated literature, opera, culture. So it was not surprising he settled in San Franscisco after the war. Though a man of refinement, he made his living by hiring his gun out to those in need. He passed his little cards around - "Have Gun, Will Travel. Wire Paladin, San Fransisco" and waited for clients to find him.

While a cultured man, he was just as comfortable in the deadly knight errant persona, the man in black. Boone excelled at making you believe both sides could exist within one man. While he was a hired gun, he often spent more time talking to people making them listen to reason.

A loved all these Westerns. Have enjoyed the reruns on TVLand, Starz Westerns, and the Hallmark Channel. But so many of the old Westerns don't hold up well. I was surprised how well Rawhide and Have Gun, Will Travel hold their quality. So these are a super addition to any video maven's collection. Sadly, I don't think Boone ever got the true recognition his talent deserved, but those of us who appreciated him can now watch his talent shine.

"the man clad in black a silver chess-set knight ~ Paladin"
CBS and Paramount Home Video present "HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL - THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON (1958-1959), featuring Richard Boone as Paladin in his clad black wearing a pistol and holster custom made stamped with a silver chess-set knight which was his trademark...as was his theme song "reads the card of a man, a knight without armor in a Savage Land"...a graduate of West Point and a veteran of The Civil War, who makes his headquarters at the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco...fighting for the underdog at a price of $1000, sometimes giving his fee away whenever the situation comanded it so for the needy...this role for Mr. Boone catapulted him to stardom and made the series a cult favorite.

First time on DVD with all 39 Original Episodes of Season Two...with guest stars noted:
Disc One (Episodes 40 - 45)
THE MANHUNTER (guest stars: Joseph Calleia, Martin Balsam, David Whorf & Stephen Colt )
IN AN EVIL TIME (guest star: Hank Patterson)
THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T TALK (guest stars: Charles Bronson & Harry Carey Jr.)
THE HANGING OF ROY CARTER (guest stars: Robert Armstrong, Francis McDonald, John Larch & Scott Marlowe)
(Screenplay: Gene Roddenberry)
DUEL AT FLORENCE (guest star: Dean Harens, Bonnie Bolding, Charles Gray, John Alderson & Hank Patterson)
THE PORTEGE (guest star: Peter Breck)

Disc Two (Episodes 46 - 51)
THE ROAD TO WICKENBURG (guest stars: Harry Carey Jr. & Don "Red" Barry) (Screenplay: Gene Roddenberry)
A SENSE OF JUSTICE (guest stars: Karl Swenson, Bing Russell & Barrie Chase)
YOUNG GUN (guest stars: Dick Foran & Abby Dalton)
THE LADY (guest star: Patricia Medina)
A SNARE FOR MURDER (guest stars: Harry Morgan, Harry Bartell & Ron Hagerthy)
THE BALLAD OF OSCAR WILDE (guest stars: John O'Malley, Richard Shannon, Jack Hogan & Roy Engel)

Disc Three (Episodes 52 - 58)
THE SOLID GOLD PATROL (guest stars: Eddie Little Sky, Sean McClory & Mike Kellin)
SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (guest stars: Rayford Barnes, Tom Brown, John Anderson & Nancy Hadley
(Filmed on location in the San Bernardino National Forest)
THE MOOR'S REVENGE (guest stars: Vincent Price, Patricia Morison & Morey Amsterdam)
THE WAGER (guest stars: Denver Pyle, Jacqueline Scott, Ken Lynch & Bob Hopkins)
THE TAFFETA MAYOR (guest stars: Edward Platt, Robert Karnes, Norma Crane & Tom Steele)
LADY ON THE STAGECOACH (guest stars: John Douchette, Dolores Vitina & Raymond Bailey)
TREASURE TRAIL (guest stars: Bruce Gordon, Peters Adams, Dean Stanton & Willard Stage)

Disc Four (Episodes 59 - 65)
JULIET (guest stars: Earle Hodgins, Miranda Jones, Allen Case & John Beradino)
(Screenplay: Gene Roddenberry)
HUNT THE MAN DOWN (guest stars: James Drury, Robert Wilke & Madlyn Rhue)
THE SCORCHED FEATHER (guest stars: Lon Chaney Jr, Mario Alcalde, Cy Malis & Mike Steele.)
( Screenplay: Bruce Geller...Robert Ceilbleu mentions people from three episodes. The Sheriff of Promise from "The Man Hunter," the barber in Florence, California from "Duel at Florence," and the two sulfur miners in Lucifer's Pit from "Gold and Brimstone.")
THE RETURN OF THE LADY (guest stars: Patricia Medina, Gene Nelson, Theodore Marcuse & Kam Tong)
THE MONSTER OF MOON RIDGE (Kam Tong, W. T. Change, Barney Phillips, Natalie Norwick)
(Screenplay: Gene Roddenberry)
THE LONG HUNT (guest stars: Anthony Caruso, Kam Tong, Anne Barton & Steve Roberts)
DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER (guest stars: Suzanne Pieshette, I. Stanford Jolley, Kam Tong & Christopher Dark)

Disc Five (Episodes 66 - 72)
INCIDENT AT BORRASCA BEND (guest stars: Jacques Aubuchon, Perry Cook, Ben Wright & Ed Faulker)
MAGGIE O'BANNION (guest star: Marion Marshall, Peggy Rea, Don Haggerty & Mickey Simpson)
(Screenplay: Gene Roddenberry)
THE CHASE (guest stars: Kam Tong, Paul Richards, Paul Birch & Wright King)
ALASKA (guest stars: Karl Swenson, Richard Shannon, Kam Tong, Allen Case, Elizabeth York & Fay Roope)
THE MAN WHO LOST (guest stars: Jack Elam, Mort Mills, Barbara Hayden & Ed Nelson)
(Directed by Ida Lupino)
THE RETURN OF ROY CARTER (guest stars: Clu Galager, Larry J. Blake, Brad von Beltz & Craig Duncan)
(Screenplay: Gene Roddenberry)
THE SONS OF AARON MURDOCK (guest stars: Kam Tong, Frank Gorshin, Philip Coolidge, Lee Kinsolving & Elizabeth York)

Disc Six (Episodes 73 - 78)
COMANCHE (guest stars: Susan Cabot, Roy Barcroft, Larry Pennell & Robert Anderson)
( This episode takes place in June, 1876.)
HOMECOMING (guest stars: Ed Nelson, Kam Tong, Don Mcgowan, Lewis Martin & Dick Rich)
THE FIFTH MAN (guest stars: John Emery, Leo Gordon, Kam Tong, Walter Burke & Ward Wood)
HERITAGE OF ANGER (guest stars: Carol Thurston, Kam Tong. Ricky Vera, Peter Coe & Carol Hill)
THE HAUNTED TREES (guest stars: Roy Barcroft, Kam Tong, Jane Chang, Doris Dowling & Duane Grey)
GOLD AND BRIMSTONE (guest stars: Eduardo Ciannelli, Phillipe Pine, Alan Reed & William Vaughan)
(Screenplay: Bruce Geller...The two sulfur miners in this episode are mentioned in an earlier episode, "The Scorched Feather". possible this is the episode that was pre-empted on 11/29/58 and shown at this later time)

Season Two contains...Special Features of Production Notes, Cast Biographies and Behind-The-Scenes Episodic Information which will quench the thirst of any fan who needed and wanted to know more about Paladin and his travels.

Want to thank Paramount Home Video and CBS for taking us back to those thrilling '50s TV Westerns...watching this legendary actor and his professional team of directors (Andrew V. McLaglen & Ida Lupino) and writers (Gene Roddenberry, Bruce Geller & Gene L. Coon) and music (Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith & Leonard Rosenman), creators (Herb Meadow & Sam Rolfe) served up the best of the best during that decade of television...great character actors of B-Westerns in each storyline with Paladin (Richard Boone)...every episode brings back so many wonderful memories of the times when television cared about you the viewer...gotta love it!

Total Time: 6-DVD-Set ~ Paramount Home Video 887774 ~ (5/10/2005)