Sat 20 Jul 2019
TV Western Review: CIMARRON CITY “I, the People” (1958).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Westerns[13] Comments
CIMARRON CITY “I, the People.” NBC, 11 October 1958. Swaon 1, Episode 1. Cast: George Montgomery (Matt Rockford), Audrey Totter (Beth Purcell), John Smith (Lane Temple). Guest Cast: Fred MacMurray, John Anderson. Director: Writers: Gene L. Coon, Fenton Earnshaw. Director: Jules Bricken.
The story is interesting enough, but as a first episode of the series, which lasted only one year, it really doesn’t do the job, as far as I was concerned. Of the three major cast members, only George Montgomery’s role is well defined. As Matt Rockford, he’s a successful cattle rancher but even more importantly, he’s also the son of the founder of Cimarron City, a small town north of Oklahoma City, and as such takes a decidedly paternalistic attitude toward it.
Audrey Totter plays the owner of a boarding house in town, and is given a few lines every so often, but her role has nothing to do with the story. I never did figure out who John Smith was supposed to be. I have since found out that he was a town blacksmith, but if he did any blacksmithing during this episode, I apologize for missing it.
I saw no reason for Audrey Totter to be in this episode, and apparently also saw no future for her in the part, for (I am told) she quit the series soon thereafter. To give Smith more of a part, in later episodes he becomes a deputy sheriff, while Montgomery is elected town mayor. But that all comes later. In “I, the People,” nobody in charge seems to know exactly what they are doing.
Which allows Fred MacMurray’s character to come into town and ingratiate himself to the town elders as a substantial citizen, moving his way up first from town banker to being elected mayor. At which point, in the name of law and order, he really begins to tighten his smug self-satisfied grip on the town.
And eventually Matt Rockford decides he’s had enough and that he’s the only one who can do anything about it. Otherwise it’s Fred MacMurray’s show all the way, at first anxious to please any way he can, but as time goes on, showing more an more of his inner character. Everything in this episode centers around him, not George Montgomery. As for Totter and Smith, they make no impression at all.
July 20th, 2019 at 8:27 pm
I have never seen even a single episode, but I smelled all that you’ve written.
July 20th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
Back in the day, I was watching HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL and GUNSMOKE. I don’t think I was more than vaguely aware of CIMARRON CITY until I recently came across a box set of DVDs for the complete first (and only) season.
July 20th, 2019 at 9:05 pm
If I recall Dan Blocker joined the cast as blacksmith when Smith was promoted.
Always nice to see MacMurray play the heel, something he did so well, and seemed to relish when he got the chance.
July 20th, 2019 at 10:05 pm
Blocker played a dimwitted villain in the second episode and yes, showed up later as a regular member of the cast.
I think Fred MacMurray always had a devious squint to his eyes.
July 20th, 2019 at 11:05 pm
I’m wondering if anybody besides me noticed this:
This series – and I checked many of the entries at YouTube just to be sure – has no credits for a composer of its theme music.
About four years back, we all got to read about the 1966 klassik, Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula.
So I got a DVD, and the first thing I noticed was that I’d heard the music years before – as the theme music of Cimarron City.
BTKVD credits a composer, Raoul Kraushaar, who had extensive credits in low-budget pix and TV, and was likely a contributor to music libraries all over Hollywood.
Cimarron City was produced by Revue, as MCA’s TV division called itself in the ’50s; they had an extensive music library, which saw much use during this time – and was available for rent or lease to other producers who needed the service.
So it seems to be that when Bill Beaudine & Co. needed a Western score for Billy Vs. Drac, they simply put in a call to the Revue library and picked up an 8-year-old TV theme for a reasonable price …
Hey, it happened – and quite a bit back then …
July 21st, 2019 at 9:06 am
You have a better ear for music than I do, Mike. The music for CC is so generic it went in one ear and out the other. I certainly enjoyed your write-up about it, though. Thanks!
July 21st, 2019 at 6:38 pm
I tried watching this episode. But the sheer lifelessness of the story telling was discouraging.
Steve: ” nobody in charge seems to know exactly what they are doing”. I had this feeling too. It was like an amateur hour.
George Montgomery and John Smith are bout likable actors. But both have had much better vehicles than this episode.
July 21st, 2019 at 6:50 pm
I hate to say it, but since posting this review, I have watched the second episode, and in terms of having a grip on what this series should be focusing on — the people and events that go on in Cimarron City — those in charge of production seem to have lost it altogether.
Montgomery is the only leading member of the cast in this one, and it takes place nowhere near Cimarron City. He is captured by a gang of outlaws consisting of Dan Duryea and four sons who are half-brothers, one of whom is Dan Blocker. Montgomery is put to work as part of a slave labor gang with a dozen or so other men, caged up underground to work a silver mine.
It’s bizarre enough to be interesting, but as an episode of a series about a frontier Oklahoma town called Cimarron City, it’s quite a stretch indeed.
July 21st, 2019 at 6:58 pm
This plot sounds like the Cheyenne episode “The Trap” (1956). There might be other ancestors too.
July 21st, 2019 at 7:02 pm
Mike
You’re right. Here’s the synopsis of the CHEYENNE story I found online:
“Corrupt mine operators arrest travelers and force them into working off their sentences at a silver mine.”
The story isn’t quite as similar as that makes it sound, but it’s awfully close:
https://cheyenne.fandom.com/wiki/The_Trap
One other thought I’ve just had, in the same sense that Fred MacMurray was the central figure in the first episode, Dan Duryea was the star of episode two.
July 21st, 2019 at 7:48 pm
The business of featuring the guest star while the star has little to do was how many dramas in that era operated. Whole episodes of THE DETECTIVES went by with little more than a nod by Robert Taylor, and later the FBI often featured the weekly villain more than Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and William Reynolds.
It allowed the studio to feature big name actors without seriously cutting into their film careers and to attract name guest stars who might not have done a role that was little more than a walk on.
Many series like GUNSMOKE alternated episodes about the guest star with ones about the regulars, a common practice with THE DETECTIVES, THE FUGITIVE, and NAKED CITY.
July 30th, 2019 at 6:12 pm
The original intent was for the series to focus on a different one of the three main characters each week – one episode would feature Montgomery, the next Smith, the next Trotter. It didn’t quite work out that way and Montgomery wound up with most of the air time.
July 30th, 2019 at 6:18 pm
Thanks, Shay. I had read that somewhere myself, but when it came time to bring it up in the comments, I couldn’t find the reference again. It’s good to know I hadn’t dreamed it all up.