![]() In The Favor, Josh tells a client how he was once a bank clerk, and how he realized one day that his job was nothing more than a prison (a nod to the nascent anti-establishment thread weaving through the popular culture at this time). Concerned with the here-and-now adventures of the two-fisted bounty hunter, Josh’s backstory is left deliberately vague. In this first season, the producers and screenwriters weren’t always consistent in their references to Josh’s past and his reputation…but the outcome of each episode made it clear this bounty hunter had a heart of gold-a bounty hunter who was even willing to forgo his money if it would aid a client who was wrongly accused of a crime. Often seen as a venal character with no scruples-basically not much different than a hired killer-the bounty hunter received a deliberate hero make-over with Wanted: Dead or Alive. ![]() Prior to Wanted: Dead or Alive, the bounty hunter had largely been portrayed as a negative character in Western films and TV.Ĭertainly by the 1950s, the notion of a loner going his own way, often against the interests of the law as well as society in general, was frowned on within a major strain in the American TV popular culture that demanded conformity and sublimation of the individual in support of perceived civic duties (no wonder so many characters at the end of these episodes try to get Josh to settle down in their little towns…to no avail). Wanted: Dead or Alive would focus exclusively on the itinerant wanderings of rootless Randall. ![]() McQueen won the part of Josh Randall, and when his one-shot Trackdown audition aired on March 7th, 1958, McQueen was given the go-ahead as the lead in Wanted: Dead or Alive.Ĭentered on the adventures of Josh Randall, a tough, wily, but fair bounty hunter who roamed the Old West, Wanted: Dead or Alive avoided the common late 1950s TV template of surrounding a lead character with a “family” of sorts, whether it was a sitcom, with its obvious family setting, or even a Western, like Gunsmoke or Rawhide, where the extended family of supporting players offered the writers plenty of opportunities to keep the storylines fresh and interesting. But Fennelly was immediately taken with McQueen’s vulnerability-not only physically (his slight stature), but also his sensitivity beneath his tough-guy New York “Method” actor hipsterness. When Steve McQueen’s agent contacted Fennelly, the suits at Four Star weren’t sure they had in mind a big, strapping Western “hero” type like Clint Walker or James Garner. Casting was critical, according to Fennelly he needed an actor who could be sympathetic to the audience, since the bounty hunter’s profession-an outsider bringing in wanted criminals not for “justice” but for money, pure and simple-could potentially turn off viewers. Vincent Fennelly, the producer of Trackdown, was looking to do a companion Western series based on the exploits of an underdog bounty hunter. Itself a spin-off from an episode of Trackdown, the less-successful 1957-1959 CBS Western series starring intense Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, Trackdown in turn was launched from an episode of the popular Four Star Productions Western drama anthology, Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater. Premiering in the fall of 1958, during the absolute heyday of the adult Western cycle on the Big Three networks, Wanted: Dead or Alive had a rather interesting gestation. Let’s look briefly at the series’ three seasons. Wanted: Dead or Alive, which ran on CBS from 1958 to 1961, is essential viewing for anyone interested in the progression of the Western genre on television, and of course, for fans of the King of Cool, Steve McQueen. Your purchase helps pay the bills at this website! Today, it’s Steve McQueen’s bounty hunter classic, Wanted: Dead or Alive, which our friends at Mill Creek Entertainment released a few years back in a fun complete series set.Ĭlick to order Wanted: Dead or Alive at Amazon. As a warm-up, you might say, to our commitment here at Drunk TV-and believe me: “commitment” is the correct word- to reviewing every single episode of the massive new 440+ hour Gunsmoke: The Complete Series DVD set, we thought we’d look at some other titles from that golden era of TV Westerns.
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