 | ||||||
| ||||||
"I like this Hec Ramsey. He's dead honest. He walks right through all the ridiculous standards of Victorian America. He's Paladin, from Have Gun--Will Travel, grown older. If Paladin had lived all those years, he would have run out of patience with the idiots and would've gotten as grumpy as Hec. He would have said to the dame, 'Lady, you're not in distress. You're just stupid.'"
- Richard Boone
TV. Paladin, the lonely drifter played on radio by John Dehner and later on televison by Richard Boone, had never been known by any other name but Paladin. His card, which read "Have Gun Will Travel, Wire Paladin, Hotel Carleton, San Francisco," began the joke that his first name was actually Wire. Not until 1972 did this Shelley-and-Yeats-quoting gunfighter, who resided in San Francisco's Carleton Hotel (room 314), finally reveal his identity. When Richard Boone began his new TV series on the Sunday Mystery Movie as the sheriff of New Prospect, Okla., he finally confessed that he, Hec Ramsey, was known as Paladin in his younger days. So there it is. Paladin is actually Hec Ramsey--"Wire Hec Ramsey, New Prospect, Okla."
Hec Ramsey
October 8, 1972
April 7, 1974
Hec Ramsey is a television Western, a production of Jack Webb's production company, Mark VII Limited, in association with Universal Studios, broadcast in the United States by NBC as part of the NBC Mystery Movie wheel show during the 1972-73 and 1973-74 seasons.
This series was groundbreaking in that it was the first television Western set in the days when the Old West was fading, the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Critics dubbed the series "Dragnet meets John Wayne", as the scripts balanced authentic investigative methods of 1900 with action and adventure.
Hec Ramsey starred Richard Boone as Hector "Hec" Ramsey, who had been a gunfighter/lawman, but had developed a strong interest in the then-emerging field of forensics. He still carried a firearm, but had traded his low-slung "gunfighter" rig for a Single Action Army-type revolver with a short barrel, carried in a Cavalry draw holster. However, his most important "weapons" were now fingerprinting equipment, magnifying lenses, scales, and other equipment which allowed him to determine the real perpetrators of crimes with greater accuracy than had previously been possible.
Ramsey, having recently become expert with his new equipment, accepts the position of deputy police chief in the fictional town of New Prospect, Oklahoma. Arriving in town, he learns that the chief of police, Oliver B. Stamp (Rick Lenz), is a very young, very inexperienced lawman who needs lots of help—fortunately, Stamp knows it, and after some initial friction, the two men develop a strong working relationship.
A colorful local doctor, Amos Coogan (Harry Morgan, who accompanied Webb during the 1967-1970 version of Dragnet and appeared on the 1971 Mark VII show The D.A.), also frequently became involved.
Despite good ratings, Hec Ramsey was canceled after two seasons following unresolvable disagreements between Boone and Universal Studios. Douglas Benton and Harold Jack Bloom were the producers; Jack Webb was executive producer.
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
