|
Perhaps the only genre more popular than private eyes in television's early years was the western, so it didn't take them long before someone came up with the idea of combining the two. The first attempt was Have Gun, Will Travel, which made it debut in 1957. By 1959, two other shows had appeared, hoping to cash in, the Frank Gruber-created Shotgun Slade and Sterling Silliphant's The Man From Blackhawk. Neither was nearly as successful. Slade lasted only two years; The Man from Blackhawk only one. The Blackhawk in the title was the Blackhawk Insurance Company of Chicago, and the man was its star investigator, SAM LOGAN. Clad in his "cityslicker" outfit, complete with string tie, and toting his briefcase, Sam rarely used his gun, although he had no such compunctions about using his fists. His assignments frequently took him deep into the heart of the frontier of the American Wwest of the 1880's, as well occasionally to San Francisco or New Orleans. According to Larka in Television's Private Eyes, Sam was "a combination insurance investigator-private eye distinguished from his modern day counterparts only by his mode of dress and transportation." TELEVISION
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. | Home | Detectives A-L M-Z | Film | Radio | Television | Web Comics | Comics | FAQs | "...and I'll tell you right out that I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."
|
