Legend has it that when GUNSMOKE was being prepared as a weekly television series, that John Wayne was offered the role of Matt Dillon, he turned it down, but recommended that James Arness be cast. The legend is not true. Wayne was never offered the role, and he did not recommend Arness to the producer. He did however encourage his friend Arness to accept the offer when Arness, with an increasingly successful feature film career, was wavering. After a record-breaking twenty year run, GUNSMOKE left the air in 1975. The following year I doubt that anyone else was ever considered for the role of Zeb Macahan in THE MACAHANS, the pilot that spawned the television series, HOW THE WEST WAS WON. In preparing my current post on RALPHS CINEMA TREK, I viewed the original 2-hour pilot, THE MACAHANS, and the entire second season of HOW THE WEST WAS WON. I was very impressed with the feature film quality that had been produced on a television budget. I was even more moved with the sensitive approach to the treatment of the Indians. The movie westerns that I grew up viewing were far different. There the ‘Injuns’ were savages. In my maturity when I read BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, I remember that as I finished each chapter of that magnificent tome, I had to stop and recover emotionally before continuing. By this time in my career I had directed a couple of Indian stories (THE WARRIOR on THE WALTONS and THE INDIANS on LOU GRANT) set in the twentieth century. I would have cherished an opportunity to work on an Indian story in that earlier pioneer period. But that was not my luck of the draw. THE SCAVENGERS was a good script, but it had little to do with the taming of the west. Frankly it was a romantic Gothic tale set in the post-Civil War period. At least it wasn’t another cop show. Heres how the show starts. Then drop in at my post at: senensky/scavengers/to see what happens next.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 01:45:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015