Tue 15 Sep 2015
A TV Western Review: GALLOWAY HOUSE “The Night Rider” with Johnny Cash (1962).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Westerns[7] Comments
GALLOWAY HOUSE. Pilot: “The Night Rider.” 1962. Johnny Cash (as Johnny Laredo), Dick Jones, Johnny Western, Merle Travis, Gordon Terry, Eddie Dean, Karen Downes. Story and screenplay: Helen Diller. Director: Michael Hinn.
Two gimmicks are going on at once here. The first gimmick is the title of the proposed series. Galloway House was supposed to be an old-fashioned playhouse theater, complete with drawn red curtains and a emcee in full colorful regalia (straw boater hat, bow tie, suspenders), with one problem as far as I was concerned. The opening introduction was clipped from the version I saw, and the closing curtain and farewell remarks came as a surprise at the end.
The second gimmick, as I understand it, and I had to hunt for a while online to discover this, was that each episode of the proposed series was to tell the story in songs and words, of a well-known country song. I don’t believe that country singer Johnny Cash was to be the star of each episode, but I haven’t found any online discussion about it, one way or the other.
In this pilot (and only) episode the song was “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” one of Johnny Cash’s many hit songs. About half the show consists of the characters singing various country standards: around a campfire, at a saloon, and at a funeral. The primary story, of course, is that of a foolish young boy who wants to prove himself a man by taking his guns to town.
Johnny Cash as the lonesome gunfighter doesn’t have to work hard to act troubled, regretful and sullen, but as effective as he is, truthfully he’s not much of an actor. Some of the other members of the cast were well-known western singers and stars. I’d like to add a special note of recognition to Karen Downes who played the saloon chorus girl, who sings “Skip to the Lou” in suitably sultry fashion. It was her only credit in either TV or the movies.
September 16th, 2015 at 11:39 pm
Johnny struggled through a few roles in movies and on television with almost no charisma what so ever off stage and not singing. He was almost as uncomfortable on screen as he made me.
This sounds like one of those ideas lucky to make it to the pilot stage. Stories based on country western music — they could have just called it Adultery and Prison Theater or My Ex is Cheating on Me With a Truck Driver on the Last Train to Yuma.
September 16th, 2015 at 11:44 pm
You can see in Cash’s eyes just how much he’s faking it on the outside and squirming on the inside.
September 17th, 2015 at 11:02 am
I can’t think of the title but Johnny even starred as a cop killer in a noirish crime meller available on YouTube.
as you say the eyes don’t lie.
September 17th, 2015 at 12:20 pm
Perhaps it’s this one: FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS0im1Zz9HI
September 18th, 2015 at 9:04 am
That’s the one.
September 18th, 2015 at 1:27 pm
We think Johnny Cash’s best performance was in “Swan Song” (1974), an episode of COLUMBO:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071351/
September 18th, 2015 at 2:39 pm
You may be right. Says one reviewer on IMDb:
“This Columbo episode is a real treat, as it features a singing Johnny Cash and footage from one of his actual concerts. Cash plays a singing evangelist who, with his domineering wife, travels the country performing religious music in order to raise money for a new tabernacle.”
which sounds as though they created the story with him in mind.
I have one or maybe two seasons of COLOMBO on DVD, but I’ve been neglecting them. Time to start watching them, I think.