Maverick
(1957)
Run Time: 60 min
Color: Black and White
Aspect Ratio: 1.33 : 1
Sound: Mono
Producer: Warner Bros Television
Genre
- Western
Seasons: 5
Episodes: 124
Overview
Maverick initially starred James Garner as Bret Maverick, an adroitly articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart Maverick, and for the remainder of the first three seasons, Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode.*The Maverick brothers were poker players from Texas who traveled the American Old West by horseback and stagecoach, and on Mississippi riverboats, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. Their consciences always trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intrinsically ethical.*When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, after which he began a successful movie career, Roger Moore was added to the cast as cousin Beau Maverick. As before, the two starring Mavericks would generally alternate as series leads, with an occasional "team-up" episode.*Partway through the fourth season, Garner look-alike Robert Colbert replaced Moore and played a third Maverick brother, Brent. No more than two series leads (of the four total for the run of the series) ever appeared together in the same episode, and most episodes featured only one. All two-Maverick episodes included Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick. For the fifth and final season, the show returned to a "single Maverick" format as it had been originally in the first eight episodes, with all the remaining new episodes starring Kelly as Bart. The new episodes, however, alternated with reruns from earlier seasons starring Garner as Bret.*Budd Boetticher directed several of the early episodes of the first season until sharply disagreeing with Huggins about Maverick's philosophy, which resulted in Boetticher assigning Bret Maverick's scripted lines to supporting characters and filming the result, thereby attempting to change the whole series by making Maverick into a standard Western hero as found in the earlier Boetticher-directed series of theatrical films starring Randolph Scott. Robert Altman wrote and directed the episode entitled "Bolt from the Blue" starring Roger Moore in the fourth season, with a couple of scenes later purloined and reshot for the subsequent Mel Gibson movie version.*The show was part of the Warner Bros. array of TV Westerns, which included Cheyenne, Colt .45, Lawman, Bronco, The Alaskans, and Sugarfoot.
Other Related Shows
1.
War of the Silver Kings
With Edmund Lowe. According to Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television interview, a Warners-owned property called "War of the Copper Kings" was selected by the studio as the basis for this episode's script in order to cheat Huggins out of the series creator residuals. The episode also features occasionally recurring character Big Mike McComb (Leo Gordon). At the episode's conclusion, he seems intended to be Maverick's continuing sidekick?but that was never actually the case. Garner maintained in his Archive of American Television interview that he and Gordon punched each other for real in their fight sequence. Directed by Budd Boetticher.
2.
Point Blank
With Karen Steele. Huggins wrote this episode as the pilot but Warner Brothers insisted on first airing an episode based on a property they previously owned. Huggins noted in his Archive of American Television interview that this was done to deny him the residuals for creating the series, a typical gambit for the studio at that time. Huggins wasn't given credit as series creator by the studio until the movie version with Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and Garner almost forty years later. Mike Connors plays a different character in this episode than his subsequent role in "The Naked Gallows" and Peter Brown briefly appears as a deputy. Directed by Budd Boetticher.
3.
According to Hoyle
Maverick debut of Samantha Crawford, in a high-stakes riverboat poker contest with Maverick. Diane Brewster had also played Crawford the previous year in an episode of Cheyenne called "Dark Rider", and writer/producer Roy Huggins had given the character his mother's maiden name. The supporting cast includes Tol Avery, Jay Novello, and Robert Carson. This episode was written by Russell S. Hughes from a story by Horace McCoy and directed by Budd Boetticher. Gambling expert Mark Pilarski states contrary to the on-screen claim at the start of the episode, "... the 1876 edition of 'Hoyle?s Games' does not include that passage. Moreover, there is no reference in the book to stud poker, let alone five-card stud. There?s also nothing about establishing table rules at the beginning of a game and nothing about straights."[1]
4.
Ghost Rider
With Stacy Keach, Sr., Joanna Barnes, Rhodes Reason, and Edd Byrnes. Maverick offers a strange beauty a ride home in a buckboard then later learns that she had died days before he met her. Billed as "Stacy Keach", Stacy Keach's lookalike father portrays the sheriff. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson.
5.
The Long Hunt
In the aftermath of a failed stagecoach robbery, a gunshot criminal tells Maverick with his dying breaths that an innocent man remains in prison for a crime that he didn't commit, leaving the gambler with the responsibility of straightening it out. Maverick finds himself forced to intermittently become an amateur detective over a period of months. Directed by Douglas Heyes.
6.
Stage West
Based on a tensely dramatic Louis Lamour story. With Erin O'Brien, Edd Byrnes, and Chubby Johnson. O'Brien's name is listed at the beginning of the episode after Garner's, an honor only accorded a small handful of actors during the series, usually Warner Bros. contract players (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Peggy King, Adam West, Troy Donahue, Andrew Duggan, Roger Moore in "The Rivals," etc.). Ray Teal, later the sincere sheriff on Bonanza, performs one of his several Maverick turns as a vicious villain. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson.
7.
Relic of Fort Tejon
Features Maverick and an affectionate camel left over from the United States Camel Corps. The gambler quickly realizes that a saloon's poker game is rigged and finds himself facing down a professional killer. Tyler MacDuff appears as Drake. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson. Test footage of Jack Kelly in costume as Maverick's brother Bart interacting with Garner as Maverick was shot during a break in the filming of this episode. Kelly was chosen for the role over competition including Stuart Whitman (who resembled Garner amazingly closely at the time) and Rod Taylor, and Kelly appears in the following week's episode.
8.
Hostage
Bart's first appearance occurs in this two-brother episode, the eighth in the series. Bret has summoned his brother Bart Maverick to New Orleans help him in a money-making venture: crashing a private cruise where extremely high-stakes gambling will be taking place. But when the ship captain's daughter is kidnapped, the plan goes awry and the Maverick brothers are prime suspects in the kidnapping case. For his first several shows, Jack Kelly as Bart usually wore a grey suit similar in color to his hat for greater contrast with Garner's standard black suit, but eventually switched to mainly a black suit himself while keeping the lighter colored hat, which remained his main costume through most of the run of the series. Written by Gerald Drayson Adams and directed by Richard L. Bare.
9.
Stampede
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. portrays Dandy Jim Buckley in the first of five appearances. One of many episodes that begin on a riverboat. Chris Alcaide appears as Tony Cadiz and professional wrestler Mike Lane as "gentle giant" Noah Perkins in this epic adventure. The second half was remade over a decade later as "Fight of the Century" for Garner's subsequent Western television series Nichols. Written by Gerald Drayson Adams and directed by Abner Biberman.
10.
The Jeweled Gun
The first of Kathleen Crowley's eight different appearances in several roles, a series record by a wide margin for leading ladies. Bret appears in this episode only briefly, receiving under two minutes of screen time. Some of the plot was later cannibalized for a Garner episode entitled "A Rage for Vengeance". The early part of "The Jeweled Gun" occurs in a Spanish-influenced town. Huggins noted in his Archive of American Television interview that Garner was originally slated to play Kelly's role in this episode but the leads were switched at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. Although Bart makes brief appearances in several Bret episodes, this is the only time Bret does so in a Bart episode. This is essentially Kelly's first solo episode. Dean Fredericks appears as Mitchell.
11.
The Wrecker
Based on a Robert Louis Stevenson ocean adventure of the same name. This is the only episode with substantial time accorded to both brothers in which Kelly's role is larger than Garner's. According to Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television interview, the two-brother scripts designated the brothers as "Maverick 1" and "Maverick 2", with Garner choosing which role he wanted to play due to his seniority in the series. With Patric Knowles and Karl Swenson.
12.
The Quick and the Dead
With Gerald Mohr as Doc Holliday and film noir queen Marie Windsor as a saloon owner in this tense drama about an angry gunslinger. Written and directed by Douglas Heyes.
13.
The Naked Gallows
With Mike Connors as a mustachioed sheriff, Morris Ankrum as a crazed zealot, Sherry Jackson as an underage temptress, and Bing Russell. The story concerns Bart's curiosity about a year-old murder, which ushers in a world of trouble. Bret appears at the opening of the episode, addressing the camera directly to introduce the story although Garner receives no billing in this episode.
14.
The Comstock Conspiracy
With Ruta Lee and Werner Klemperer. Convoluted mysteries keep compounding, leaving a flummoxed Bret to wonder why this is happening. Written by Gene Levitt and directed by Howard W. Koch.
15.
The Third Rider
With 1930s Western star Dick Foran as a lawman thwarted by Bart in this action-packed dramatic episode featuring Barbara Nichols. James Garner, dressed as Bret, makes a 15-second appearance to address the camera directly and introduce the episode, but receives no billing.
16.
Rage for Vengeance
With Catherine McLeod, Russ Conway as a sheriff, and a villainous John Russell. The only episode in the series in which Bret openly falls in love (with McLeod in her only series appearance) and wants to actually get married.
17.
Rope of Cards
Bret is reluctantly dragooned into being a juror in a small-town murder case. This courtroom drama features Will Wright as an elderly attorney, Tol Avery as a murderously jealous villain, Joan Marshall as the town schoolteacher, William Reynolds as a man accused of murder, Frank Cady as an even-handed shopkeeper, and Emile Meyer as a truculently stubborn juror. Bret is offscreen, or seen only as a silent juror, for long stretches of time?at one point, nearly 20 minutes of screen time pass without a line for Bret. However, Bret demonstrates a memorable card trick ('maverick solitaire', http://www.solitairelaboratory.com/maverick.html) in the jury room, and according to Roy Huggins in his Archive of American Television interview, every deck of cards in the United States sold out the day after this episode was first broadcast.
18.
Diamond in the Rough
Written by Marion Hargrove from a story by Roy Huggins. Bart gets assaulted and shanghaied. The San Francisco diamond swindle depicted in this episode was loosely based on the true story of the Great Diamond Hoax of 1872. With Jacqueline Beer, Fredd Wayne, Lilli Valenty, and Sig Ruman. Bart mentions his old friend Dandy Jim Buckley?who at this point had yet to appear in a Bart episode. As with other early Bart-only episodes, James Garner, dressed as Bret, makes a 15-second appearance to address the camera directly and introduce the episode, but receives no billing.
19.
Day of Reckoning
A cowboy accuses Bret of cheating during a poker game and a blow to the head from the Marshall accidentally executes the complainant in this complex dramatic episode. With Jean Willes as Lil, Virginia Gregg as Amy Hardie, and Tod Griffin as Jack Wade.
20.
The Savage Hills
Bart takes a turn with Samantha Crawford (Diane Brewster) on a riverboat adventure. An unbilled James Garner, dressed as Bret, introduces the episode.
21.
Trail West to Fury
A flashback episode about the Maverick brothers returning from the American Civil War, as told to Dandy Jim Buckley (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) while the three of them are trapped during a flood. The plotline involves Bret and Bart having to avoid Texas after being falsely accused of a murder there, with only a mysteriously disappeared "tall man" as a witness who could exonerate them if only they could locate him. Writer/producer Roy Huggins would recycle this plot as the basis for his later television series The Fugitive, with Diane Brewster in a recurring cameo role as Richard Kimble's murdered wife.
22.
The Burning Sky
With a Mexican Gerald Mohr, Joanna Barnes, and Whitney Blake. An unbilled James Garner, dressed as Bret, introduces the episode, in which Bart is one of a group of six ambushed stagecoach passengers. While the group of six strangers are under siege, it becomes clear the ambushers have targeted this specific stagecoach because one of the six passengers must be secretly carrying something valuable?but who, and where could it be hidden?
23.
The Seventh Hand
Against his better judgement, Bret allows Samantha Crawford to sponsor him in a high-stakes poker game?which soon leads to an apparent double-cross and a cross-country chase. When Samantha idly wonders about what it might be like to marry Bret, he responds, "We couldn't afford it." Sam Buffington, the portly character actor who portrays a primary villain of this episode, repeatedly described by various characters throughout the story as having a face like a frog, eventually committed suicide at age 28 in 1960. He also appears in four other episodes playing different characters, including Ponca in "The Quick and the Dead." James Philbrook, in his first year as an actor, portrays Sloan in "The Seventh Hand." Written by Russell S. Hughes.
24.
Plunder of Paradise
Bart and Big Mike hunt for a buried treasure in Mexico, while being relentlessly shadowed by a group of bandits led by Jay Novello. This is the first Maverick episode in which James Garner does not appear at all?not even to introduce the show. With Ruta Lee as dance hall singer Dolly Muldoon. Written and directed by Douglas Heyes, who also co-wrote Dolly's musical number, "Virtue Is Its Own Reward".
25.
Black Fire
Hans Conried plays a friend who recruits Bret to borrow his identity for a family reunion, one that's presided over by a hard-bitten patriarch portrayed by Will Wright. Charles Bateman made his first screen appearance as Cousin Jeff Martin. One of only two Garner episodes not included in Columbia House's 1990s library of series videotapes (the other was "Holiday at Hollow Rock"). Though James Garner introduced several Bart-only episodes, this marks the only time that Jack Kelly (unbilled) does so for a Bret-only episode. Kelly addresses the camera directly to introduce the episode, and then narrates the episode in character as Bart.
26.
Burial Ground of the Gods
After getting robbed at gunpoint of $850, Bart traces thief Paisley Briggs (Claude Akins) to Denver, then to Wyoming. Once there, Bart gets hired to guard the now-penniless Briggs, who has convinced a putative widow that her husband is still alive, and that Briggs is the only person who knows where to find him.
27.
Seed of Deception
The Maverick brothers are mistaken for Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp in this two-brother episode. Huggins' wife Adele Mara plays a saloon dancer, and Bart is still wearing his grey suit. Ron Hayes made one of his first acting appearances in the episode and Joi Lansing briefly appears as "Doll." Bret and Bart would technically appear in sixteen episodes together over the course of the series but only share a large amount of screen time in eleven of them. The others are actually Garner's episodes with brief appearances by Kelly except "The Jeweled Gun", in which their roles were switched at the last minute due to a schedule conflict and Garner wound up making his single cameo appearance in a Kelly installment.