Fri 16 Jun 2023
A Western TV Episode Review: TALES OF WELLS FARGO “Shotgun Messenger†(1957).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Westerns[5] Comments
TALES OF WELLS FARGO. “Shotgun Messenger.†NBC, 07 May 1957 (Season One, Episode 6). Dale Robertson (Jim Hardie). Guest cast: Michael Landon, Walter Sande, Kem Dibbs. Story consultant: Frank Gruber. Teleplay by Sloan Nibley and Dwight Newton. Director: Lew Foster. Currently available on Starz and free on YouTube (see below).
A new gold mine means that Wells Fargo needs to set up a new stagecoach route in the area, which means that men must be found right away to be drivers and to ride shotgun. While barely a man, young Tad Cameron (Michael Landon) is hired by Jim Hardie decides to hire him as the latter, even though the boy’s father was fired by Wells Fargo eight years earlier under suspicion of being in cahoots with two outlaws who held up one of their stages.
And guess what? The same two owlhoots are still around are trying their best to get young Tad to join up with them. Does he? Of course not.
All in all, a small morality play, as weren’t most adult westerns that overpopulated the nation’s TV screens in the late 50s and early sixties?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
What was an extra huge viewing bonus was looking back in the YouTube time machine to see Michael Landon as young as he was then and not yet the TV star he was to become.
That he was a natural is obvious.
June 16th, 2023 at 9:33 pm
Our heroes did a lot if Social work in the adult Westerns on television.
June 16th, 2023 at 11:40 pm
David, I found that annoying. Social work, then or now, is not my thing, and certainly not in Westerns. Thank goodness Randolph Scott and John Wayne went the traditional way. Well, mostly.
June 17th, 2023 at 8:32 am
Sloan Nibley wrote several of the late-’40s Roy Rogers movies, including a Quentin Tarantino fave, THE GOLDEN STALLION. Nowadays the “Tales of Wells Fargo” in the news media reflect less favourably on the company’s business practices than the old Westerns did.
June 17th, 2023 at 12:44 pm
There were times when I was watching this that I thought I was watching a long commercial for the company.
As for present business practices, it is a shame. It is the bank that my son and I had a home mortgage with, and the people we dealt with all seemed to be fine people. It was the ones higher up that had their lapses.
June 17th, 2023 at 2:08 pm
Co-screenwriter Dwight Newton has a notable track record as well. From Wkipedia:
“Dwight Bennett Newton (January 14, 1916 – June 30, 2013) was an American writer of westerns. He also wrote under the names Dwight Bennett, Clement Hardin, Ford Logan, Hank Mitchum and Dan Temple. Newton was one of the six founder members of the Western Writers of America. He was a writer and story consultant for various television shows including Wagon Train and Tales of Wells Fargo.”