Black Saddle

Black Saddle
Peter Breck as Clay Culhane and Anna Lisa as Nora Travers, 1959
Genre	Western
Created by	Hal Hudson John McGreevey
Written by	Antony Ellis George Fass Gertrude Fass John Falvo Richard Fielder Frederick Louis Fox Hal Hudson Jack Jacobs Stuart Jerome Paul Kelly Paul King Ken Kolb Richard Levinson Robert Libott William Link John McGreevey Don Mullally Rod Peterson Joseph Stone John Tucker Battle
Directed by	Frank Baur William F. Claxton John English William D. Faralla Robert Florey Roger Kay Francis D. Lyon Gerd Oswald David Lowell Rich Boris Sagal James Sheldon Elliott Silvertstein
Starring	Peter Breck Russell Johnson Anna-Lisa J. Pat O'Malley Walter Burke
Theme music composer	Jerry Goldsmith Arthur Morton
Composer(s)	Michael Hennagin Arthur Morton
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1 1/2
No. of episodes	44
Production
Executive producer(s)	Hal Hudson
Producer(s)	Antony Ellis Hal Hudson
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	24 mins.
Release
Original network	ABC
Picture format	Black-and-white
Audio format	Monaural Stereo
Original release	January 10, 1959 (1959-01-10) – May 6, 1960 (1960-05-06)

Black Saddle is an American Western television series starring Peter Breck that aired 44 episodes on ABC from January 10, 1959, to May 6, 1960. The half-hour program was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original pilot was an episode of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, with Chris Alcaide portraying the principal character, Clay Culhane.

For syndicated reruns, Black Saddle was combined with three other Western series from the same company, Law of the Plainsman starring Michael Ansara, Johnny Ringo starring Don Durant and Mark Goddard, and The Westerner with Brian Keith, under the umbrella title, The Westerners, with new hosting sequences by Keenan Wynn.

Synopsis

Peter Breck's character, Clay Culhane, is a gunfighter who becomes a lawyer after his brothers were killed in a shootout. Breck starred along with Russell Johnson and Anna-Lisa in the roles of Marshal Gib Scott and Nora Travers, respectively. Other recurring roles were filled by character actors J. Pat O'Malley in eight episodes as Judge Caleb Marsh and Walter Burke in five segments as Tim Potter.

In the episode "Client Neal Adams" (May 9, 1959), James Drury, more than three years before the premiere of his The Virginian on NBC, guest stars as Neal Adams, an old friend of Culhane's who has robbed a bank of $8,000. Shot in the back by a pursuing bounty hunter, played by Charles Aidman, Adams asks Culhane for help. Adams claims that the bounty hunter is the brother of a man whom Adams had earlier killed in self-defense. From the start, Marshal Scott doubts Adams' story and questions Culhane's judgment in the matter.^[1]

In "Client Peter Warren" (October 30, 1959), John Lupton, a year after the close of his Broken Arrow western series, plays a man accused by townspeople of starting a fire that caused the death of his estranged wife's wealthy and respected aunt. The motive is inheritance of joint property from the aunt's pending estate. Culhane agrees to defend Warren but instead finds evidence that Warren had been present at the scene of the fire. Ed Nelson portrays Lee Coogan, a hot-headed man and a former suitor of Mrs. Warren, played by Aneta Corsaut. Coogan is also determined to show Warren's guilt.^[2]

In "Apache Trail" (November 20, 1959), Culhane and Nora go to an Indian outpost to collect a debt owed to her. There they encounter Sam King (DeForest Kelley), accused of defrauding tribesmen. King is beaten with a whip, survives the ordeal, only to be shot to death.^[3]

Guest stars

Other Black Saddle guest stars were Chris Alcaide, John Anderson, Parley Baer, Raymond Bailey, Paul Birch (in the role of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in the episode "Mr. Simpson"), Lane Bradford, Paul Burke, Dennis Cross, John Dehner, Frank Dekova, Buddy Ebsen, Hampton Fancher, James Franciscus, Jack Ging, Dabbs Greer, Clu Gulager, Robert Harland, Stacy Harris, Brett King, Robert Knapp, John Marley, Ann McCrea, Patrick McVey, Vic Perrin, Stafford Repp, Bing Russell, Richard Rust, Robert F. Simon, and Quintin Sondergaard.

Scheduling

Black Saddle aired at 10:30 p.m. on Fridays after another Four Star Production, The Detectives starring Robert Taylor. Its competition on CBS was the interview program Person to Person created by Edward R. Murrow. NBC aired the 45-minute Gillette Cavalcade of Sports in the same time slot.

Black Saddle was filmed at the Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, California. Several years later, Peter Breck later went on to star as Nick Barkley in another, more successful Four Star series, The Big Valley.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Black Saddle.

• Black Saddle on IMDb
• Black Saddle at TV.com
• Black Saddle at TVAddicts