Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp s01e01 Mr. Earp Becomes a Marshal (1955)

[Robert]

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a western television series loosely based on the adventures of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black and white series ran on ABC-TV from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O'Brian as Earp. An off-camera barbershop quartet sang the theme song and hummed the background music in early episodes. Incidental music was composed by Herman Stein. The series was produced by Desilu Productions and filmed at the Desilu-Cahuenga Studio

O'Brian was chosen for the role due to a resemblance to early photographs of the actual Earp; James Garner later played Earp in the movies Hour of the Gun and Sunset for the same reason. On the series, Earp carried a Buntline Special, a pistol with a twelve-inch barrel, triggering a mild toy craze at the time of the series' original broadcasts. There is no credible evidence whatsoever that the real Earp ever owned such a gun, however; the myth of Earp's Buntline Special traces back to Stuart N. Lake's spurious 1931 Earp biography Frontier Marshal, purported upon publication to be based on actual interviews but later admitted by the author to be highly fictionalized.

O'Brian recreated the role of Earp in two episodes of the television series Guns of Paradise (1990), alongside Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, and again in 1991 in The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, also with Barry as Masterson. A curious independent movie called Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone was released in 1994 featuring new footage of O'Brian as Earp mixed with flashbacks consisting of colorized scenes from the original series. The new sequences co-starred Bruce Boxleitner, Paul Brinegar (Rawhide), Harry Carey, Jr., and Bo Hopkins.

A major actor from the silent era with a similar name was the first man to play the character in a film version of the book upon which the television series was based. George O'Brien, star of F.W. Murnau's 1927 masterpiece Sunrise, played the title role in 1934's Frontier Marshal three years after Stuart N. Lake's book first appeared. Other actors to fill Earp's boots on film include James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Kevin Costner, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Richard Dix, Will Geer, Kurt Russell, and Leo Gordon.

Notable performers appearing on the show include Francis De Sales (three times), James Coburn, Ron Foster (as Johnny in "Arizona Lottery"), Ron Hagerthy, Robert Harland, Brad Johnson (twice, including the role of Ed Masterson), Ed Hinton, I. Stanford Jolley (six times, including "A Papa for Butch and Ginger"), Tyler McVey (four times), Gregg Palmer (five times as Tom McLowery), John M. Pickard (three times), Anna May Wong, and John Vivyan.


Initially resistant to becoming a lawman, Wyatt Earp has a change of heart after seeing the sheriff of Ellsworth, Kansas murdered in cold blood by the inebriated brother of town scourge Ben Thompson.

Download: Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp s01e01 Mr. Earp Becomes a Marshal (1955)

[Mike Newton]

Re: the history of the Buntline Special. Edward Zane Carroll Judson aka Ned Buntline is said to have presented five special presentation Colts to five Dodge City lawmen: Bill Tilghman, Charles Basset, Bat Masterson, Neal Brown and Wyatt Earp. Since the 12 inch barrel proved cumberson in a quick draw, four of the marshals were said to have cut the barrel down to the regular 5". Earp however carried the gun to buffalo any unruly cowpoke by hitting him across the head before taking him to jail. The gun came equipped with a shoulder stock so that it could be used as a carbine. While gun collectors may have claimed to have owned the famous six-gun, it never turned up in any collection. The legends about it however grew and grew.

[martin fennell]

thanks a bunch