Johnny D. Boggs brought something we haven’t seen in a while to our Western Night gathering: a first season episode from the television series THE VIRGINIAN titled “Duel at Shiloh.” The series ran from 1962 to 1971 and was loosely based on the Owen Wister novel of the same name and set in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, where the Virginian (played by James Drury) acts as a ranch foreman.
Back in the day, some of the film studios, in this case Universal, took scripts of films they had produced and turned them into episodes for their television shows. For this episode of THE VIRGINIAN, they rewrote MAN WITHOUT A STAR, a 1955 Kirk Douglas film about a wandering cowboy who befriends a young tenderfoot, comes to work on a cattle ranch owned by a wealthy woman and finds himself in the middle of a range war. The episode writers, D.D. Beauchamp, Borden Chase, and Don Ingalls, altered the original story by turning it into a flashback episode showing how young ranch hand Steve Hill (Gary Clarke, a regular in the show’s first two seasons) first came to work at the Shiloh Ranch.
Considering that television productions had limitations in time and budget compared to feature films, this episode wasn’t bad, not great, but certainly watchable. Episodes ran in a 90-minute format. Even so, some scenes in this episode played well while others ended abruptly creating confusion.
Taking the Kirk Douglas role, Brian Keith’s gruffness plays well, particularly in an amusing sequence where he teaches Steve how to shoot. Other guest stars included Ben Johnson (THE WILD BUNCH) as a rival ranch foreman and DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy on the tv series STAR TREK) playing a nasty cattle drover.
The show’s rousing theme was composed by Percy Faith, and it still sounds pretty darn good today.
THE VIRGINIAN is available on DVD by individual season or the complete series at Amazon.com.
Along with Johnny Boggs, record ten-time Spur Award-winning author and Owen Wister Award winner whose work includes his latest, BLOODY NEWTON, our group includes Kirk Ellis, Emmy winning screenwriter and producer, as well as author of the upcoming book THEY KILL PEOPLE about the making of BONNIE AND CLYDE due out in February, Kirk’s wife, Sheila, David Morrell, award-winning author and New York Times best-selling author of FIRST BLOOD, the novel that introduced the character Rambo, and Robert Nott, award-winning journalist and author of several books on Western films, including his most recent RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY that examines the production, themes and legacy of the film that launched Sam Peckinpah’s career.
