MovieChat Forums > Ride the High Country (1962) Discussion > The Rifleman

The Rifleman

posted 14 years ago by Hancock_the_Superb
9 replies | jump to latest

Yesterday I watched the Shivaree episode of The Rifleman on a Christian TV channel. I note this because this episode featured a lot of near-identical elements to Ride the High Country.

The basic plot of the episode was a bunch of drunken toughs harrassing a young man and his wife on their wedding night. The wife (played by Luana Anders) had an identical get-up to Mariette Hartley, wearing tomboy clothing when she's first seen, with the same short haircut. At the wedding there was also a scene where a musician asked "Isn't someone going to kiss the bride?" and the rowdy wagoners fought each other for a smooch. Also a scene where Lucas rescues the girl, bursting in the front door of a saloon, gun drawn, and cold-cocking a tough, in a manner identical to Joel McCrea in Ride the High Country, and one of the characters (I think the groom) getting dunked into a water trough a la Warren Oates.

The episode also features John Anderson (Elder Hammond) as the principal bad guy.

I know Sam Peckinpah was involved with The Rifleman at various times, but he doesn't seem to have worked on this episode. Still, the similarities seem awfully striking to me, and perhaps might not be put down to coincidence.

Also, this episode was from 1959, so it wasn't a rip-off/borrowing of Ride the High Country's plot elements.

Anyone else seen this episode?

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[–] KettelMeister 14 years ago

I believe it's spelt "Peckinpau"

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[–] turtletommy 14 years ago

Haven't seen it Hancock but sounds interesting and the similarities seem to be too close for coincidence. As you said Peckinpah was involved with The Rifleman series (for the first season) as well as several other TV western series in which wrote screenplays. He worked with several of the actors who later had roles in Ride the High Country (Oates, Anderson, R G Armstrong etc) so it appears highly likely that the big screen RTHC had evolved from his earlier TV work as screenwriter and director.

[–] cagordon22 14 years ago

I stumbled on this movie today for the first time, just as Mariette Hartley was being forced into her marriage. EVERYTHING that happened after that reminded me of the Shivaree ep of The Rifleman, except for the one difference that in the Shivaree episode the girl very much wants to be married to her fiance.

I met Johnny Crawford a few years ago and he said that the first year of the show was the best, because Peckinpah was around. He also said that Peckinpah dropped by whenever he could, between filming his movies later.

[–] softboiled 14 years ago

Two other Rifleman episodes with striking parallels:

"The Wrong Man", written by N.B. Stone, is basically about a corrupt lawman, known for killing his quarry, who misidentifies and then shoots an innocent man while blackmailing the real criminal, now living near North Fork under an assumed name. The notable thing for me, though, is the way the episode opens on a town carnival very much like the one in Ride the High Country.

"The Baby Sitter", written and directed by Sam Peckinpah, includes a Bible verse-quoting husband who is trying to take his infant daughter from his run-away wife, a dance hall singer. Lots of wrath against women of low character; it was like Joshua Knudsen had stepped in for the day (and maybe he had, though the character in The Rifleman was played by John Dehner)

[–] ScarletPimpernel64 13 years ago

Check out the Westerner episode "Line Camp", which became WILL PENNY. Tom Gries wrote both of them. Slim Pickens was a cook in both with the identical costume.

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[–] Hancock_the_Superb 12 years ago

Very interesting Softboiled. I missed those episodes.

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[–] grumpyoldguy1 9 years ago

So here I am 5 years after your original post. I just saw that Rifleman episode for the first time, and a few minutes into it, had the same thought you did...had to come see if it shared writers at all with Ride the High Country. I hear great minds think alike...

[–] MuleDeer 9 years ago

I enjoy some of the old TV Westerns, particularly "High Chaparral" and "Gunsmoke," and enjoyed "The Rifleman." It's funny to think about them, though, in more realistic terms. Just think, Lucas McCain usually killed two or three guys a week. That adds up to 100 to 150 people per year. In a couple years, he's shot 300 people to death. At what point would North Fork's townspeople stop thinking of him as a protecting angel and begin to think he was a homicidal maniac?

[–] ScopeWatcher 8 years ago

In four of the six Rifleman episodes written and/or directed by Sam Peckinpah ("Home Ranch," "The Boarding House," "The Money Gun," and "The Baby Sitter"), Lucas McCain shoots no one. (Take THAT for fact-checking.)

Also, according to the biography written by David Weddle, Peckinpah's deal for this TV series which he initiated (without receiving a creator credit) entitled him to a fee for every episode produced during its run, even after his early departure. He created a number of the recurring characters and even sketched out multiple plots and storylines that eventually became full episodes which he neither wrote nor directed. Consider that in these speculations on "Shivaree" and the later RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY.

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