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Have Gun - Will Travel

  • TV Series
  • 1957–1963
  • Approved
  • 25m
IMDb RATING
8.4/10
3.6K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,276
334
Have Gun - Will Travel (1957)
Watch Have Gun Will Travel - H&I Network Promo
Play trailer0:16
1 Video
99+ Photos
Classical WesternWestern

The adventures of a gentlemanly gunfighter-for-hire.The adventures of a gentlemanly gunfighter-for-hire.The adventures of a gentlemanly gunfighter-for-hire.

  • Creators
    • Herb Meadow
    • Sam Rolfe
  • Stars
    • Richard Boone
    • Kam Tong
    • Hal Needham
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    8.4/10
    3.6K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    2,276
    334
    • Creators
      • Herb Meadow
      • Sam Rolfe
    • Stars
      • Richard Boone
      • Kam Tong
      • Hal Needham
    • 49User reviews
    • 13Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 5 Primetime Emmys
      • 1 win & 6 nominations total

    Episodes225

    Browse episodes
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    Videos1

    Have Gun Will Travel - H&I Network Promo
    Trailer 0:16
    Have Gun Will Travel - H&I Network Promo

    Photos412

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    Top cast99+

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    Richard Boone
    Richard Boone
    • Paladin…
    • 1957–1963
    Kam Tong
    Kam Tong
    • Hey Boy
    • 1957–1963
    Hal Needham
    Hal Needham
    • Cowhand…
    • 1958–1963
    Stewart East
    Stewart East
    • Hotel Carlton Waiter…
    • 1959–1963
    Lisa Lu
    Lisa Lu
    • Hey Girl…
    • 1958–1961
    Tony Regan
    Tony Regan
    • Hotel Carlton Desk Clerk…
    • 1958–1962
    Cosmo Sardo
    Cosmo Sardo
    • Hotel Carlton Guest…
    • 1959–1963
    Edward Faulkner
    Edward Faulkner
    • 2nd Guard…
    • 1958–1962
    Harry Carey Jr.
    Harry Carey Jr.
    • Banker Burton…
    • 1958–1963
    Roy Barcroft
    Roy Barcroft
    • Flannigan…
    • 1957–1963
    Olan Soule
    Olan Soule
    • Desk Clerk…
    • 1958–1962
    Ted Smile
    Ted Smile
    • Townsman…
    • 1957–1963
    Hank Patterson
    Hank Patterson
    • Jess Larker…
    • 1958–1962
    Leonard P. Geer
    Leonard P. Geer
    • Townsman…
    • 1957–1959
    Perry Cook
    Perry Cook
    • Barfly…
    • 1958–1962
    Robert J. Stevenson
    Robert J. Stevenson
    • Clemenceau…
    • 1957–1963
    Richard Shannon
    Richard Shannon
    • Ben Jackson…
    • 1958–1963
    Brad Weston
    • Eddie Clinton…
    • 1959–1961
    • Creators
      • Herb Meadow
      • Sam Rolfe
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews49

    8.43.5K
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    Featured reviews

    Brax0r

    Have Gun - Have Fun

    I recently bought season one of "Have Gun - Will Travel" on DVD. I'm only twenty years old, but I've always had an interest in the golden age of television and westerns. I've never seen this show before purchasing it... but I've heard my father talking about it before and it sparked an interest.

    Unlike "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza", "Have Gun - Will Travel" is a lot darker (for it's time, especially) and a lot more in-depth - story-wise and moral-wise -- but not too dark, mind you. It's tasteful and holds important morals. Richard Boone, who plays the jack-of-all- trades hero Paladin, does a terrific job playing the classy scholar gun-for-hire who often quotes Shakespeare. The show relies more on character interaction and story, as opposed to the cliché gun slingin' and horse riding (although they are included tastefully into the story lines).

    Overall, this is an extremely fun show. If you like the '50s Disney "Zorro", starring Guy Williams, than you'll love this. Amazing for any Western and Drama fan, too.

    4.5/5, quality entertainment, writing, production and acting.
    9animal_8_5

    We Need Paladin Today

    Richard Boone was brilliant as Paladin and the opening where he draws his gun to tension-building music was one of the best of any program made during the late-fifties. The half hour programs were always socially and politically poignant, with the hero always prevailing over injustice, discrimination and hate.

    The craggy-faced Boone dresses in black, making him a possible icon for the motorcycle sub-culture of our society. A typical "anti-hero"....establishing his OWN justice and being an avenging angel, tormenting those who have been unjust. Seemingly of the opinion that less is more, Paladin never EVER used his gun unless absolutely necessary and somehow, in the process, scared all malefactors crap-less. We could use more of that humbleness today.

    Shows like "Dog - Bounty Hunter" and "Orange County Chopper" once had the potential to be modern versions of Paladin, but are quite lost on me, due to today's propensity away from mental and moral stability and toward "quirkiness." Today producers feel more is best and less is nothing. This disease is epidemic in the entertainment productions of the early 21st century. Television was truly meant for great programs like Have Gun - Will Travel.
    PJ-73

    born too soon...

    The plot and the character, Paladin (which is not actually the gunfighter's name; he takes the moniker after being challenged by a character named Smoke) were ahead of the times for 1957. Paladin is a multilingual gentleman of letters who sees no need for macho bravado, is a champion of human rights (regardless of race or nationality) and who proves that real men can be literate, eloquent, and even wear a satin robe.

    Having viewed the Columbia House re-release of twenty-one episodes of "Have Gun", it amazes me how much Paladin is a renaissance man. Paladin laughs up his sleeve as his adversaries fumble in comic absurdity, trying to prove just how masculine they are. Psychology, not a pistol, often is the weapon of choice. Even so, after twenty-two minutes of clever strategy and elocution, the fist and the forty-four are often called upon to end the story, lest we run out of time.

    No small surprise that "Have Gun" provided writer Gene Roddenberry with a creative garden to develop ideas for another series (deemed by the omniscient sages of networkdom to be "too cerebral"), "Star Trek".
    KolchaktheNightstalker

    Proves what a great storytelling medium television can be

    As the proud owner of both the first and second seasons of "Have Gun - Will Travel", I am continually impressed with the quality and complexities of this "forgotten" treasure. Created during an age of western storytelling that was inundated with cardboard, do-gooders that were so clean they squeaked when they walked, Paladin stands out as an effective genre bridge between the over idealistic cowboy typified in John Wayne and the anti-hero "The Man With No Name" Clint Eastwood. "Have Gun - Will Travel" is a series that remembers the key to great storytelling is a believable character being true to himself at all times. Paladin is a combination rogue who works within the system, Robin Hood, and a crusader for the downtrodden. Quick with both a gun and a sarcastic wit, this professional problem solver is as at home in a drawing room as he is around a campfire. While this may sound hokey if you are as cynical as I am, I can assure you it is not. Besides casting the perfect actor for the role, the late Richard Boone, the creators used a talented group of writers {including Gene "Wagontrain to the Stars" Roddenberry} who used every second of screen time to move you through story lines that were frequently only westerns in their setting. I particularly enjoy the fact that you are never given more than an occasional hint as to Paladin's back-story. While this may frustrate some viewers, I find the air of mystery that it lends to the character adds to his complexity. For anyone that truly enjoys well crafted escapism or simply wonders if new life can be brought to an already overworked concept, you could not find a finer example of the true artistic potential of cinema's "bastard" child than "Have Gun - Will Travel".
    9stephenrtod

    A Choice of Weapons

    From 1957 through 1963, my father and I watched Paladin collide with, subtly interface with or adroitly meld with various picaresque characters in the old West circa the 1880's. What strikes me now at age 67 is that . . .

    a. In a manner similar to Gordon Parks' wonderful book, "A Choice of Weapons," in which the author chose compassion, wit, a sense of humor, patience, charm, resourcefulness and other positives - as opposed to violence - as a means out of the ghetto and upward and onward toward financial, personal and professional success - It strikes me now that Paladin was an exemplary role model for young men, maybe particularly in America of the 1950s and early 1960s - but moreover, now in the age of uncivil gridlock and those who appear desirous to utilize direct military intervention as the panacea for any and all international disputes.

    b. Paladin as portrayed by Richard Boone strikes me now as a rather Pirandello-esque character looking for and often trying to create a better, more civilized, world with his erudition, his wisdom, and his unwillingness to use his hand gun unless absolutely necessary. Paladin almost always finds himself outnumbered, outgunned, and often betrayed, sabotaged, and either beaten up or nearly killed by a scurvy array of vicious scoundrels, con men and women, roues, and miscreants. He frequently suffers for upholding the noblest of principles.

    The story "The Protégé" is perhaps the very best illustration of my point. A young man who was bullied turns into a bully himself. In the end, it is the protagonist's own father who confesses to Paladin that the latter proved himself to be the young man's very best friend- even beyond death.

    c. Rites of passage, naturalistic tragi-comedies, and complex slice-of-life short stories with a moral, "Have Gun Will Travel" was best viewed just before "Gunsmoke," another vehicle for what I view as real, pragmatic family values: e.g. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be trustworthy. Champion and defend women, children, the helpless and the underdog. When I purchased an autographed copy of James Arness's autobiography several years ago, I shared with him my appreciation for the values he inculcated in the heart of this young boy at the time.

    d. "Have Gun, Will Travel" may have represented an acquired taste for some viewers. Plots were never simplistic. Despite showcasing great writers such as Gene Roddenberry, this show never took the easy road to success. The show was a mighty draw for some of the greatest - albeit then unheralded - actors and actresses who wished to cut their teeth in a show without special effects, focusing, instead on good stories substantiated by excellent writing. With its emphasis on complex characterization and sensitive themes, the show took great creative risks.

    "The Gunfighter and the Princess" is apt illustration of this point. In the space of 30 minutes, minus commercials, Paladin regales an innocent young princess with two profound quotations from Marcus Aurelius, and another by Plato. These utterances focus on man's only responsibility to endure the prison of the self (Aurelius) and the difference, at heart, between anarchy, democracy, aristocracy (Plato).

    A classics scholar, a former commander of a cavalry unit at Bull Run, Paladin is, nonetheless, a tender, loving man of peace at heart, a renaissance man who impresses ladies with his ability to cook and clean house while honoring honorable people.

    To call "Have Gun, Will Travel" a western is to miss the point of a deeply philosophical drama, especially one that was filmed during the heating up of the Cold War and interspersed with the generals continually trying to egg Ike into one war after another with places like Quemoy, Matsu, Formosa and others. Like Ike, Paladin knew a better way: Getting along with human differences without resorting to violence. I suspect that like Ike who opined, "I knew those guys in the Pentagon," Paladin was quite familiar with the Dionysian impulse in humanity, that party-hearty urge that leads from narcissism to celebration, exaltation, violence and, ultimately, chaos. Paladin's Apollonian approach involved reason, logic, knowledge and making civilized, more authentic choices involving respect, cooperation and peaceful co-existence. His dialogue is always sprinkled with poignant witticisms from Western and Eastern classical literature and philosophy.

    This, clearly, is not a show for the passive viewer who merely wishes to see a very superficial portrayal of man-versus man, a mere shoot-em-up. "Have Gun, Will Travel" excelled in penetrating examinations of man-versus society, man versus nature, and, especially, man versus self.

    The older I become, the more gems and gold ore I find to mine in these seven seasons of "Have Gun, Will Travel."

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      While many television series are taken from radio shows, the radio show "Have Gun - Will Travel" with John Dehner as Paladin appeared after the television show.
    • Goofs
      Paladin usually presents his business card by taking it from his waistline (usually under his gun belt or out of his pants). The card is, understandably, wrinkled or bent when presented, yet when it is shown on screen in the close-up it is always a new, flat card with no wrinkles or folds, but when they show the card in Paladin's, or others, hand, it is wrinkled again.
    • Quotes

      Paladin: I don't think you got a very good look at this gun while you had it. The balance is perfect. This trigger responds to a pressure of one ounce. If you look carefully in the barrel you'll see the lines of the rifling. It's a rarity in a hand weapon. This gun was handcrafted to my specifications and I rarely draw it unless I mean to use it. Would you care for a demonstration?

    • Connections
      Featured in The Golden Years of Television: Westerns (1986)
    • Soundtracks
      Ballad of Paladin
      By Johnny Western, Richard Boone, and Sam Rolfe

      Sung by Johnny Western

      Recorded by Johnny Western

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    FAQ21

    • How many seasons does Have Gun - Will Travel have?Powered by Alexa
    • William.Ma Deaver, who has known him for years, uses it once in "The Five Books of Owen Deaver."No idea yet on his last name. It certainly isn't Paladin.
    • What are the names of Paladin's horses?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 14, 1957 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • El pistolero de San Francisco
    • Filming locations
      • Bend, Oregon, USA
    • Production companies
      • CBS Television Network
      • Filmaster Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      25 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 4:3

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