Except for possibly one thing like the unique Walker, Texas Ranger (or even perhaps the newer re-imagining, Walker), it is not typically that the Western style crosses over with conventional community procedurals. However again within the early Nineteen Seventies, after the Large Three networks purged themselves of most horse opera content material, one traditional Western TV star tried his greatest to combine the normal tales with a extra fashionable flare. Richard Boone was the star, and Hec Ramsey was this system, which adopted an outdated gunslinger as he sought to make use of extra fashionable strategies of prison investigation to resolve crimes on the open frontier. In a approach, it was form of like NCIS meets the Wild West.

‘Hec Ramsey’ Blended Westerns With Traditional Community Procedurals

In October 1972, Hec Ramsey premiered on NBC throughout the community’s NBC Sunday Thriller Film programming block. In keeping with Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh of their ebook, The Full Listing to Prime Time Community and Cable TV Reveals, 1946-Current, his rotating Sunday night time leisure slot featured Richard Boone’s newest sequence in addition to reveals like Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Spouse, every to various levels of success. However Hec Ramsey lasted solely two seasons on the community, spawning a complete of 10 episodes between 1972 and 1974. Which may not appear to be lots, however contemplating that every episode lasted an hour and a half (therefore NBC platforming it as a “thriller film”), Hec Ramsey was a TV film sequence with an actual kick. It was lots like Sherlock if the present had been made in the US and was set within the Outdated West.

As for the content material of the sequence, Boone’s titular hero (whose nickname “Hec” is brief for Hector) was an outdated gunfighter who obtained sick of pulling his weapon. In his outdated age, he has turn out to be extra within the “newfangled” sciences of the late nineteenth century and has spent appreciable time and assets studying all he may about criminology. After all, he nonetheless carries a gun however prefers to make use of his personal investigative gear. Upon arriving in Oklahoma, Hec is roped into turning into the deputy to a youthful (and much greener) lawman, Oliver B. Stamp (Richard Lenz), who is not fairly positive about Hec’s strategies at first. However over time, the pair start to work collectively to resolve new instances and crimes round New Prospect, with characters resembling Doc Amos B. Coogan (Harry Morgan), Arne Tornquist (Dennis Rucker), and Sgt. Juan Mendoza (Perry Lopez) in tow.

Some notable visitor stars included future Tombstone star Kurt Russell, who appeared because the hot-headed Matthias Kane within the episode “Scar Tissue.” Curiously, this could have been just a few years earlier than Russell nabbed the main position in his personal short-lived TV Western program, The Quest, however that is one other story. Different visitor stars included The Fast and the Useless‘s Pat Hinkle, Bruce Davidson of X-Males fame (and now 1923), Rio Bravo‘s Claude Akins, and even Jackie Cooper, who performed Day by day Planet editor-in-chief Perry White within the unique Christopher Reeve Superman photos. Little doubt, Richard Boone pulled in fairly an array of expertise.

Richard Boone In contrast Hec Ramsey To His Most Well-known Western Hero

Whereas producer Jack Webb as soon as known as the sequence “Dragnet meets John Wayne,” Hec Ramsey wasn’t practically as violent as among the different Westerns of its day. However the main star, Richard Boone, had his personal ideas on the kind of character Hec Ramsey was. “Nonetheless, outdated Hec could also be totally different in some methods, however he comes out of the identical set of guts as Paladin,” he informed The New York Occasions in 1972. Paladin, in fact, was the actor’s most notable position, a gun-for-hire who was the lead of the six-season tv Western, Have Gun — Will Journey. Whereas not Boone’s solely notable Western position (he additionally discovered himself starring reverse John Wayne in The Alamo and The Shootist), the Paladin character is definitely one of the best that the traditional TV Westerns of the ’50s and ’60s needed to provide. To that impact, Boone noticed a few of his outdated good friend within the Hec Ramsey character, and tried to play him as such.

After all, Have Gun — Will Journey is definitely among the best TV Westerns ever made, and it is a disgrace that this system was canceled far earlier than its time (although, it did handle to supply 225 episodes beforehand). However with Hec Ramsey, Boone had the chance to revisit the Paladin character, or, extra precisely, this character kind. Actually, each Paladin and Hec relied extra on their brains than their brawn, and if there was a method to kind out bother with out violence, they all the time took it. That is the place the NCIS of it comes into play. Hec’s reliance on his newfound methods, leaving the gunslinging of the Outdated West up to now, was a daring enterprise into the longer term. With this brand-new format — with longer installments and a extra centered, mystery-infused narrative — allowed Richard Boone to revisit the Western with a contemporary sense of fashion, and that is why it labored so profoundly effectively. Hec Ramsey has been off the air for fairly a while, however it has by no means been fully forgotten.

Sadly, Hec Ramsey is just not out there on streaming, and episodes can solely be present in components on YouTube.

Watch on YouTube