Trackdown (TV series)
A Western series endorsed by the Texas Rangers.
Trackdown is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 to 1959, starring Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. Produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, it was a spin-off of the anthology series Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. The series was sponsored by the American Tobacco Company via its Lucky Strike brand and Mobil.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Western
- Director
- Thomas Carr
- Lawrence Dobkin
- Richard Donner
- Don McDougall
- R.G. Springsteen
- Starring
- Robert Culp
- Ellen Corby
- Peter Leeds
- Norman Leavitt
- James Griffith
- Gail Kobe
- Addison Richards
- Theme music
- William Loose; and John Seely
- Composer
- Harry King
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Company
- Four Star Productions
Facts from the source article.
Overview
Trackdown stars Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, set in the 1870s after the American Civil War. Early episodes focused on Gilman traveling to different Texas towns pursuing wanted fugitives; at midseason, the series became set in the town of Porter, Texas. Episodes touched on multiple Western themes and topics, earning it the description "the thinking man's Western." Gilman serves as the de facto sheriff in Porter, where his friends include Henrietta Porter (Ellen Corby), widow of the town's founder and owner of The Porter Enterprise newspaper; Tenner Smith (Peter Leeds), owner of the local saloon; and Norman Leavitt as Ralph, his assistant and de facto deputy. Occasionally, Gilman's Texas Ranger duties take him out of town, where he uses his fast gun to track down wanted criminals throughout the Lone Star State. The pilot episode, "Badge of Honor," directed by Arthur Hiller, aired on Zane Grey Theatre on May 3, 1957. In it, Gilman, an ex-Confederate cavalry officer, returns to his hometown of Crawford after the war to find it under the control of a gang led by ex-Confederate colonel Boyd Nelson (Gary Merrill). After a Texas Ranger is killed, Gilman picks up the fallen badge and brings Nelson and his gang to justice. Trackdown carried the endorsement of both the State of Texas and the Texas Rangers, an accolade no other Western television series has received; some episodes were inspired by actual Ranger files.
Background and production
Vincent Fennelly produced every episode of Trackdown. John Robinson wrote fourteen episodes, including the pilot. Richard Donner directed some installments. Sam Peckinpah wrote one episode, "The Town," which centers on a town too frightened to stand up to an outlaw gang, but he never directed for the series. Robert Culp wrote "Back to Crawford," casting his then-wife Nancy Asch-Culp as Merrilee Quintana, a childhood friend of Hoby's who seeks vengeance for the death of her young husband at his hands; this story connects directly to the first regular episode, "The Marple Brothers." Peggy Webber returned as Hoby's sister Norah, a role she played in the pilot. Robert Culp said in an interview that the creators intended Trackdown to be "the Western Dragnet," and that pilot writer John Robinson helped create Dragnet. Character actor Ed Prentiss narrated the series. A long list of guest stars included Nick Adams, James Coburn, Steve McQueen, Michael Landon, Rita Moreno, Warren Oates, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, Stuart Whitman, and Chill Wills, among many others.
Cultural references
The episode "The End of the World" received attention after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in 2016, nearly 60 years after it first aired. In the episode, a rabble-rousing doomsayer named Walter Trump (played by Lawrence Dobkin) comes to town, scaring townsfolk with talk of an impending disaster and claiming to be the only one who can save them—by building a wall. He threatens to sue Hoby when accused of dishonesty and is eventually arrested as a conman and fraud. The coincidental similarity to Donald Trump's name and proposed border wall was noted by several media outlets, including Vanity Fair, The Wrap, and the San Francisco Chronicle, which observed that the character's speech closely resembled the president-elect's catchphrases.
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