Cimarron Strip - Complete Series

It's a curious but true fact that very few TV shows (as distinct from movies shown on TV, or even made-for-TV movies) ever succeeded with a 90-minute format; the only two that lasted for any significant length of time were “The Virginian” and “The Sunday-Night Mystery Movie,” and the latter was really several revolving series, not just one, which gave each of them between two and four weeks to film a segment. This one should have done equally well, and it's always surprised me that it didn't, but now at least we have it on DVD to enjoy over again. (It's another curious fact that, unlike most TV series, it was actually made available on videotape for a while, one episode per cassette, through Stuart Whitman's production company, which somehow acquired the rights.) The year is 1888, the setting what is now the panhandle of Oklahoma, a long narrow last-remains-of-the-Old-West sandwiched between Kansas, eastern New Mexico, the windswept Staked Plains of Texas, and the no-man's-land of the Cherokee Outlet, which provides a splendid sanctuary, inviolable except by the Army and Federal marshals, to fugitives of every stripe. To this final Western frontier comes cigar-smoking, 35-year-old U.S. Marshal Jim Crown (Whitman), to headquarter in Cimarron, the eponymous town of the Strip, and also oversee its other five towns, Hardesty, Shades Wells, Beaver City, Grand Valley, and Guymon. There he meets Angus MacGregor (Percy Herbert), brewer of whiskey and teller of tales; Francis Wilde (Randy Boone), photographer and free-lance newspaper correspondent looking for a “legend” to sell to the Eastern sheets; and Dulcey Coopersmith (Jill Townsend), 18-year-old heiress to the Wayfarers' Inn, whose quiet unquestioning faith in him is enough to shake even a cynical lawman—when he warns her that this raw frontier will kill her, she calmly says, “That can't happen...You're here.”The series has some obvious similarities to the much-longer-running "Gunsmoke," but it's no clone. Crown may not have Matt Dillon's imposing size, but he has real presence and benefits from a deep growly drawl, angular face, deep chest, and something of a gunfighter's look, with his solid-silver hatband, silver-buttoned Mexican trousers, and long-barrelled, silver-plated, ivory-handled sixgun. He's also experienced in the ways of outlaws, and a clever strategist whose active mind is shown at work more than once (one semi-foe even gives him the nickname “Tricky Jim”). He copes with sooners, Indians, Army officers (not all of them by any means helpful), and an assortment of gunfighters, badmen, and wannabes ranging from punk cattlemen's sons to men grown old in the ways of crime. Some of his foes are almost tragic, men he understands and respects, like the Indian chief (Henry Wilcoxon) who has lost his land, the respect of his people, and finally his only son; the veteran buffalo hunter (Albert Salmi) who rightfully points out that men like him were on the scene when even pioneers and soldiers feared to dare the Indians, and finds it bewildering that there's now no place for them; or the 23-year veteran cavalryman (Richard Boone, the only person designated a “guest star” in the opening credits, possibly because he and Whitman had worked together in the movie "Rio Conchos") who realizes, to his utter bewilderment, that what he was trained to do and honored for doing is no longer required: men who, like Crown himself, wish the old wild cattleman's-and-Indian's West could last forever. Not all are without redeeming features: there's Jud Starr, who, though ruthless enough to kill a boy he “loved like a son” when the youngster is unwittingly used by Crown as a Judas goat, alternates between grief and sarcastic rebuke when Crown accidentally shoots his half-Cherokee fiancee; or Jinglebob McQueen, whose powerful rancher father has taught him all his life to stand his ground, but has also lamented over and over that he “can't do anything right;” or Sgt. Clay Tyce, a handsome, gallant Irishman who, even though he's in league with rustlers, is charming and chivalrous to Dulcey and has a host of friends in town as well as the loyalty of his men. And then there are the true originals, notably frequent TV heavy L. Q. Jones, who, in “The Search,” appears as a very different kind of character—Lummy, a scavenger who discovers the wounded Marshal out on the prairie and convinces himself that by rescuing “Mister Kingly Crown” he'll earn such gratitude from the citizens of Cimarron that “they might even build [me]—a statue!”Unlike most Westerns of the Golden Age, this one is notably consistent in its dating and with history; frequent mention is made of Congress's foot-dragging over the opening of the Cherokee Outlet to white settlement, and there's even a chillingly suspenseful story (written by sf great Harlan Ellison) which posits that after his last London killing, Jack the Ripper went to the U.S. and eventually arrived in Cimarron in December, 1888. On the other hand, at least some of the stories seem to be told out of order: in “The Battleground,” which is the pilot in a flashback frame, we learn that Crown's Marshal's commission is dated August of '88, and in “Nobody,” Warren Oates as Mobeetie (a role he created in the other segment) says it's “been a long hard year” since he lost his job therein; it's also very hot in Cimarron—yet the Ripper episode comes 10 segments later. And the settings are very often quite incongruous, desert and mountain rather than level High Plain.The guest list features many well-known names of the day, including John Saxon (for once not playing a Hispanic part), Henry Silva, Darren McGavin, Barbara Luna, Beau Bridges, Steve Forrest (who appears twice, as charming, handsome rogues), Pat Hingle, Telly Savalas, R. G. Armstrong, Broderick Crawford, Kevin Hagen, Gene Evans, John Anderson, Robert Duvall, Morgan Woodward, Joseph cotton, Jim Davis, Suzanne Pleshette, Lola Albright, Leslie Nielsen, Simon Oakland, Royal Dano (as a light-eyed half-Pawnee), Robert J. Wilkie, Denver Pyle, J. D. Cannon, Lyle Bettger, James Stacy, David Carradine, Steve Ihnat, James Gregory, Robert Lansing, Slim Pickens, Bob Random, Tuesday Weld, Philip Carey, Mariette Hartley, Jon Voight, Mark Lenard, and David Brian. Maurice Jarre's stirring theme, and the incidental scores for the various episodes, ought to be brought out on CD. The color quality, I have to admit, is somewhat uneven, and occasionally the picture will “jump” or flicker as if the print had been made from a videocassette rather than an archival copy; and the “bonus interview” with Whitman (now in his 80's) is very short (only eight minutes). But, as Whitman himself says, it was a series with a “good family” of regulars, and he had great fun doing it—and it shows.

A good solid western starring Stuart Whitman as Marshall Jim Crown. It also starred Percy Herbert as MacGregor a cantankerous Scottish saloon owner, Jill Townsend as Dulcey an English rose who comes to find her father and stays taking over the saloon and turning it into an inn and Randy Boone from "The Virginian" as Francis a freelance reporter.Quite a lot of well known faces appear in this show like:John Saxon ( Enter the Dragon)Telly Savalas (Kojak)David Carradine (Kung Fu)Richard Boone (Have Gun will Travel)Joseph Cotton (Citizen Kane)Leslie Neilson (The Naked Gun)James Stacy (Lancer)Tuesday Weld (Bonnie and Clyde)Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol)Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy)This series only lasted one season but deserved to run for longer.Great production values are evident from the beginning to the end. I believe this was the only series Stuart Whitman did.Although he did appear in movies and guest starred in order TV shows.I thought this show was cancelled because we already had a marshal in Gunsmoke but it seems that there was another reason. On this DVD set the bonus feature is an interview with Stuart Whitman which was all too short for my liking.Here he explains why the show was cancelled. It seems the producer was Leonard Freeman and he was producing another series for TV called "Hawaii Five O" with Stuart Whitman in mind for the part of Steve McGarrett. I had heard that Jack Lord was not the actor who was originally intended for the role but was brought in at the last minute to everyone's surprise. Now I know who that actor was.So Cimarron Strip was cancelled in favor of Five O and the rest is history.Still, this is a fine western and below are some of my favourite episodes:THE HUNTED: Two outlaw bothers turn themselves in to Marshal Crown for a fair trial but a wealthy cattleman who's son was killed hires two bounty hunters to kill them.THE DEPUTY: A man hires on as Marshal Crown's deputy in order to exact revenge on his cohorts who left him for dead after a robbery went wrong.KNIFE IN THE DARKNESS: A killer is on the loose with two women mutilated.Could this be the work of Jack the Ripper?THE GREENERS: Marshal Crown tries to convince a family to testify in a case where they saw the lynching of two derelicts.WHITEY: A vengeance crazed outlaw plans to get even with the gang who double-crossed him. He takes Dulcey hostage but begins to fall in love with her.She also starts to have feelings for him.Will he go through with his plan and will he make it out alive?

Great to find such a classic here!!