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(From "The Wild Wild West" (1965)) "We always put in lot more (fighting) than we really wanted to see. (The censors) would say:'We're going to take out two punches...two of this...three of that...' So when they finished,we were still left with what we really wanted anyway."
Robert Conrad
The show was originally titled "The Wild West West" but was renamed when it was decided that The Wild Wild West sounded better.
The Wild Wild West
September 17, 1965
April 4, 1969
The Wild Wild West is an American television series that ran on CBS for four seasons (104 episodes) from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969.
Developed at a time when the television western was losing ground to the spy genre, this show was conceived by its creator, Michael Garrison, as "James Bond on horseback."
Two television movies were made with the original cast in 1979 and 1980, and the series was adapted for a motion picture in 1999 with a new cast and story.
Michael Garrison and his partner at the time, Gregory Ratoff, purchased the film rights to Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1955. They pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox, but the studio turned them down. After Ratoff died in 1960, his widow and Garrison sold the film rights to Charles K. Feldman, who eventually produced the spoof Casino Royale in 1967. Garrison, in the meantime, had brought James Bond to television in a unique way.
The pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno", was produced by Garrison and scripted by Gilbert Ralston, who had written for numerous episodic TV series in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1997, Ralston sued Warner Brothers over the upcoming motion picture based on the series. (Wild Wild West was released in 1999.) In a deposition, Ralston explained that he was approached by Michael Garrison, who '"said he had an idea for a series, good commercial idea, and wanted to know if I could glue the idea of a western hero and a James Bond type together in the same show." Ralston said he then created the Civil War characters, the format, the story outline and nine drafts of the script that was the basis for the television series. It was his idea, for example, to have a secret agent named Jim West who would perform secret missions for Ulysses S. Grant.
Ralston's experience brought to light a common Hollywood practice of the 1950s and '60s, when television writers who helped create popular series allowed producers or studios to take credit for a show (thus denying the writers millions of dollars in royalties). Ralston died in 1999, before his suit was settled. Warner Brothers ended up paying his family between $600,000 and $1.5 million.
As indicated by Robert Conrad on his DVD commentary for the first season, the show went through several changes in producers in its early weeks of production. This was apparently due to conflicts between the network and Garrison. Collier Young produced episodes 2–4. These episodes featured a butler named Tennyson who traveled with West and Gordon. Tennyson was dropped after the fourth produced episode, but since the episodes were not broadcast in production order, the character popped up at different times during the first season. Fred Freiberger produced episodes 5–14; John Mantley episodes 15–21; and Gene L. Coon episodes 22–27. Garrison then returned to produce the last episode of season one. On August 17, 1966, early during production of the second season, however, Garrison, at home, was taking a shower when the telephone rang. He ran to the phone, slipped on tile floor, fell down the stairs, and was killed. CBS brought in Bruce Lansbury, head of programming in New York, to produce the show for the remainder of its run.
The Wild Wild West told the story of two Secret Service agents: James West, the charming gunslinger (played by Robert Conrad), and Artemus Gordon (played by Ross Martin), the brilliant gadgeteer and master of disguise. Their unending mission was to protect President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States from all manner of dangerous threats. The agents traveled in luxury aboard their own train, the Wanderer, equipped with everything from a stable car to a laboratory. James West had served as an intelligence and cavalry officer in the US Civil War; his "cover" during the series is that he is a railroad president. After retiring from the Service by 1880 he lives on a ranch in Mexico. Gordon's past is more obscure; when he retires in 1880 he goes on the road as the head of a Shakespeare traveling players troupe.
The show incorporated classic Western elements with an espionage thriller, as well as science fiction/alternate history ideas (in a similar vein to steampunk) and plenty of comedy. In the finest James Bond tradition, there were always beautiful women, clever gadgets, and delusional arch-enemies with half-insane plots to take over the country or the world.
The title of each episode begins with "The Night" (except for the first-season episode "Night of the Casual Killer", which omitted the definite article).
A memorable recurring arch-villain was Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless, a brilliant but megalomaniac dwarf portrayed by Michael Dunn. Like Professor Moriarty for Sherlock Holmes, Loveless provided West and Gordon with a worthy adversary, whose plans could be foiled but who resisted all attempts to capture him and bring him to justice. Loveless was introduced in the show's sixth produced, but third televised episode, "The Night the Wizard Shook The Earth", and appeared in another nine episodes. Initially he had two constant companions: the huge Voltaire, played by Richard Kiel; and the beautiful Antoinette, played by Dunn's real-life singing partner, Phoebe Dorin. Voltaire disappeared with no explanation after his third episode (although Richard Kiel returned in a different role in "The Night of the Simian Terror"), and Antoinette after her sixth. According to the TV movie The Wild Wild West Revisited, Loveless eventually dies in 1880 from ulcers, brought on by anger and frustration at having his plans consistently ruined by West and Gordon. (His son, played by Paul Williams, subsequently seeks revenge on the agents.)
Though several actors appeared in multiple villainous roles, only one other character had a second encounter with West and Gordon: Count Manzeppi (played flamboyantly by Victor Buono, who played another, different villain in the pilot), a diabolical genius of "black magic" and crime, who – like Dr. Loveless – had an escape plan at the end. (Buono eventually returned in More Wild Wild West as a parody of Henry Kissinger, who ends up both handcuffed and turning invisible with the villainous Paradine.)
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While the show's writers created their fair share of villains (Agnes Moorehead won an Emmy for her role as Emma Valentine in "The Night of The Vicious Valentine"), they frequently started with the nefarious, stylized inventions of these madmen and then wrote the episodes around these devices. Stories were also inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne.
Robert Conrad and a stock company of stunt players choreographed at least two fight sequences per episode. Conrad also insisted on performing all of his own stunts, such as leaping off a balcony or running in front of a team of horses. During filming of "The Night of the Fugitives," Conrad fell 12 feet from a chandelier onto a concrete floor and suffered a concussion. Production of the series, then near the end of its third season, was shut down two weeks early. (The episode eventually aired during the fourth season, with footage of the fall left in.) Ross Martin broke his leg in a fourth season episode, "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary," and suffered a heart attack a few weeks later after completing "The Night of Fire and Brimstone." His character was replaced temporarily by other agents played by Charles Aidman (four episodes), Alan Hale, Jr. and William Schallert. Aidman said that the script rewrites he had been promised simply amounted to changing the name "Artemus Gordon" to "Jeremy Pike" (his character's name). Pat Paulsen is frequently thought of as a Martin substitute, but he in fact appeared in one of Aidman's episodes, and his character would have been present even if Martin appeared.
Ross Martin once called his role as Artemus Gordon "a show-off's showcase" because it allowed him to portray over 100 different characters during the course of the series, and perform dozens of different dialects. Martin sketched his ideas for his characterizations and worked with the makeup artists to execute the final look. Martin was nominated for an Emmy in 1969.
For the pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno," the producers used Sierra Railroad No. 3, a 4-6-0 locomotive that was, fittingly, an anachronism: it was built in 1891, and Grant left office in 1877. Footage of this train, with a 5 replacing the 3 on its number plate, was shot in Jamestown, California. Best known for its role as the Hooterville Cannonball in the CBS series Petticoat Junction, Sierra No. 3 probably appeared in more films and TV shows than any other locomotive in history. It was built by the Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works in Paterson, New Jersey.
When The Wild Wild West went into series production, however, an entirely different train was employed. The locomotive, a 4-4-0 named the Inyo, was built in 1875 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia. Originally a wood-burner, the Inyo was converted to oil in 1910. The Inyo, as well as the express car and the passenger car, originally served on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad in Nevada. They were among V&T cars sold to Paramount Pictures in 1937–38. The Inyo appears films including High, Wide, and Handsome (1938), Union Pacific (1939), The Marx Brothers' Go West (1940), Meet Me in St. Louis, (1944), Red River (1948), Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase (1956) and McLintock! (1963). For The Wild Wild West, Inyo's original number plate was temporarily changed from No. 22 to No. 8 so the train footage could be flipped horizontally without the number appearing reversed. Footage of the Inyo was shot around Menifee, Calif., and reused in many episodes. (Stock footage of Sierra No. 3 occasionally resurfaced as well.)
These trains were used only for exterior shots. The luxurious interior of the passenger car was constructed on Stage 6 at CBS Studio Center. (Neither Stage 6 or the western streets still exist.) Designed by art director Albert Heschong, the set reportedly cost $35,000 in 1965. (Between $190,000 and $250,000 2008 dollars.)
The interior of West and Gordon's train was used in an episode of Gunsmoke titled "Death Train" (aired 1/27/67).
After her run on The Wild Wild West, the Inyo participated in the Golden Spike Centennial at Promontory, Utah, in 1969. The following year it appeared as a replica of the Central Pacific's "Jupiter" locomotive at the Golden Spike National Historical Site.. The State of Nevada purchased the Inyo in 1974; it was restored to 1895 vintage, including a wider smoke stack and a new pilot (cow catcher) without a drop coupler. The Inyo is still operational and displayed at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. The express car (No. 21) and passenger car (No. 4) are also at the museum.
Another veteran V&T locomotive, the Reno (built in 1872 by Baldwin), was used in the two Wild Wild West TV movies and in the 1999 theatrical film starring Will Smith. The Reno is located at Old Tucson Studios.
The main title theme was written by Richard Markowitz, who was brought in after the producers rejected two attempts by film composer Dimitri Tiomkin. Markowitz was not credited for his theme – although he did receive "music by" credit for episodes he'd scored (such as "The Night of the Bars of Hell" and "The Night of the Raven") or where he supplied the majority of tracked-in cues (for example in "The Night of the Grand Emir" and "The Night of the Gypsy Peril"), and he got "theme by" credit on both of the TV movies, both of which were scored by Jeff Alexander rather than Markowitz (few personnel from the series were involved with the TV movies). It is believed that this was due to legal difficulties between CBS and Tiomkin over the rejection of the latter's work. Markowitz had previously composed the theme to the TV series The Rebel.
The first season's episodes were filmed in black and white, and were darker in tonality. Cinematographer Ted Voightlander was nominated for an Emmy for his work on these episodes. Subsequent seasons were filmed in color and the show became noticeably campier. Still, some episodes were quite violent, and that, rather than ratings, ultimately was the series' downfall; according to Susan Kesler's book, CBS bowed under pressure from watchdog groups and gave the show its cancellation notice in late February, 1969. Bruce Lansbury claimed that "It was a sacrificial lamb...It went off with a 32 or 33 share which in those days was virtually break-even, but it always won its time period."
Conrad and Martin reunited for two television movies, The Wild Wild West Revisited (aired May 9, 1979) and More Wild Wild West (aired October 7–8, 1980). Revisited introduced Paul Williams as Miguelito Loveless Jr., the son of the agents' arch-nemesis. Loveless planned to substitute clones for the crowned heads of Europe and the President of the United States. (This plot was borrowed from the second season episode "The Night of the Brain.") More was initially conceived as a rematch between the agents and Miguelito Jr., but Williams was unavailable for the film; his character was changed to Albert Paradine II and played by Jonathan Winters - this explains why the story begins with various clones of Paradine being murdered (the first film ends with Loveless having cloned himself and placed the doubles around the world). Paradine planned world conquest using a formula for invisibility (recalling the first season episode "The Night of the Burning Diamond"). Both TV films were campier than the TV series, although Conrad and Martin played their roles straight. Both films were directed by veteran comedy Western director Burt Kennedy and written by William Bowers (in the latter case with Tony Kayden, from a story by Bowers); neither Kennedy nor Bowers worked on the original series.
The series spawned several merchandising spin-offs, including a seven-issue comic book series by Gold Key Comics, and a paperback novel, Richard Wormser's The Wild Wild West, published in 1966 by Signet (ISBN 0-451-02836-8), which adapted the episode "The Night Of the Double-Edged Knife".
In 1988, Arnett Press published The Wild Wild West: The Series by Susan E. Kesler (ISBN 0-929360-00-1), a thorough production history and episode guide.
In 1990, Millennium Publications produced a four-part comic book series ("The Night Of The Iron Tyrants") scripted by Mark Ellis with art by Darryl Banks. A sequel to the TV series, it involved Dr. Loveless in a conspiracy to assassinate President Grant and the President of Brazil and put the Knights of the Golden Circle into power. The characters of Voltaire and Antoinette were prominent here, despite their respective early departures from Dr. Loveless' side in the original program. A review from the Mile High Comics site states: "This mini-series perfectly captures the fun mixture of western and spy action that marked the ground-breaking 1960s TV series." The storyline of the comics mini-series was optioned for motion picture development.
In 1998, Berkeley Books published three novels by author Robert Vaughan – The Wild Wild West (ISBN 0-425-16372-5), The Night of the Death Train (ISBN 0-425-16449-7), and The Night of the Assassin (ISBN 0-425-16517-5).
In the 75th volume of the French comic book series Lucky Luke (L'Homme de Washington), published in 2008, both James West and Artemus Gordon have a minor guest appearance, albeit the names have been changed to "James East" and "Artémius Gin".
Charles Aidman was added to the cast to fill in while Ross Martin was recovering from a mild heart attack.
Rory Calhoun was originally cast to play Jim West.
Miguelito Loveless' middle name is Quixote.
Jim West's birthday is July 2, 1842. He was named after his father's brother.
Jim and Artie had two different trains. The first was a dark-paneled model used in the seasons the show was filmed in B&W. The second was a more functional model decorated in green and gold. It's this train, which houses the unique gadgets associated with the show, that most people remember.
Jim West was a captain in the army before he joined the Secret Service.
The series was ultimately canceled due to CBS being uncomfortable with the "excessive" violence of the series, rather than declining ratings.
Though Richard Markowitz wrote the theme, he wasn't credited for it on any episode of the series (or on the 1999 movie).
The name of Jim and Artemis's rail car was The Wanderer 1.
Miguelito means "little Michael".
Robert Conrad did all his own "fight choreography", including the stunts, until he almost killed himself when one of them backfired.
Robert Conrad (5'8") wore 3" heels as Jim West and the CBS casting office had orders not to hire any women over 5'6" for the show.
Ross Martin read the script. Then he did a pen and ink drawing of the character he was going to play, down to the last detail, glasses, mustached, clothes, posture, shoes, etc. Then he brought sketch to make-up man Don Schoenfeld, and together they molded his face until it looked like the drawing.
The only episode whose title doesn't begin with "The Night..." is "Night of the Casual Killer."
Television shows of the era that filmed at the same studios often shared minor cast members. It is common to see familiar faces in episodes of "Star Trek" (1966), "Batman" (1966), "Mission: Impossible" (1966) and "The Wild Wild West" (1965).
Three veterans of "The Wild Wild West" (1965), stuntman Whitey Hughes, makeup artist Ken Chase and actor Richard Kiel, reminisce about the series and star Robert Conrad in the book "A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde" (McFarland & Co., 2010) by Tom Weaver.
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