The Westerner (TV series)

Did You Know?

• Dave Blassingame is a cowboy and drifter who is handy with a gun and his fists, travelling through an often lawless country trying to get enough money together to buy his own ranch.
• Brown figures prominently in a number of episodes, appears in all of them, and always appears following Blassingame during the end credits.
• Following the series' cancellation, Peckinpah and Keith made the film The Deadly Companions together, the former's feature directorial debut.

Cast

Brian Keith portrayed Dave Blassingame, with Spike playing his dog Brown. Hank Gobble appeared as Digger, and John Dehner as Burgundy Smith. Guest stars included Malcolm Atterbury, Ben Cooper, Katy Jurado, and John M. Pickard. The first episode featured Warren Oates as a drunk quietly passing out at a table. Several guest stars later appeared in Peckinpah's feature films.

Release

The series began with a pilot on CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. For syndicated reruns, it was combined with three other short-lived Westerns—Black Saddle, Johnny Ringo, and Law of the Plainsman—into a package called The Westerners, with Keenan Wynn hosting. Shout! Factory released a complete two-DVD set, including the pilot, in February 2017.

Spin-offs and remakes

An attempt to update the series aired as a January 1963 episode of The Dick Powell Theater titled 'The Losers', directed by Peckinpah and starring Lee Marvin as Dave Blassingame and Keenan Wynn as Burgundy Smith, set in the modern West. The episode 'Line Camp' guest-starring Robert Culp was the basis for the 1968 film Will Penny starring Charlton Heston. Brian Keith briefly played the same character again in 1991's The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw.