The Guns of Will Sonnett
The series, which began with the working title, "Two Rode West", was the first production collaboration between Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas, who would later go on to produce The Mod Squad.The series starred veteran character actor Walter Brennan as Will Sonnett, and Dack Rambo as his grandson, Jeff, who were searching for Will's son, James.In the season one episode The Favor, Will Sonnett is described by a former trading post merchant as having worked over 20 years earlier at Fort Turney as "one of the greatest scouts the Army ever had."In the November 3, 1955 episode A Spray of Bullets, story and screenplay by Carr, actor Dick Powell plays "Will Sonnett," an aging, recently retired sheriff with a reputation for a fast draw but now with distance vision problems who visits a town in need of glasses from an eye doctor and is eventually called out in a blurry street duel with a gunfighter who has learned of his poor eyesight and wants to increase his own fame by killing the famous Sonnett.In a deserted town, Will and Jeff come upon an injured outlaw who asks them a favor, to turn him in and send the reward money to his wife and daughter in Kansas City, family he hasn't seen for a long time.Jim Sonnett appears in an oncamera photograph with the trick shooter taken specially for this story and is the first time Jeff sees what his father looks like, apart from drawings on wanted posters.Without any lawyer willing to defend him, Will takes the case and with time running out, hopes an old friend will arrive in court with forensic science evidence that will clear Jeff of the crime.While waiting to meet up with Jeff in a windy, darkened ghost town, Will is grazed by a bullet from a sniper and begins experiencing hallucinatory visions from his past, including an imagined visit by his son Jim.Jeff is shocked to learn that the infant son of the daughter is claimed to be Jim's, meaning if true he has a half-brother, and the child is also named James Sonnett.An old Army friend of Will's who saved Jim Sonnett's life when the boy was eight years old and lost in the wilderness pretends to have struck it rich and asks Will and Jeff to help him carry on his ruse when his girlfriend arrives from back east, a love interest with whom he has only exchanged letters.Will and Jeff cross paths with a black-suited, Bible verse-spouting preacher whose main line of work is bounty hunting with an accomplice and who now has a new target by way of an out-of-date poster... "Wanted: James Sonnett, $1000, dead or alive."Joby, a saloon worker who enjoys being a gossip and teller of tall tales, witnesses a gunfight he instigated between Jim Sonnett and another man.Later he meets Will and Jeff eating in his saloon and, learning their identities, attempts to arrange another gunfight, this time with the Sonnetts and the dead man's two partners, leading to a twist ending.At their campsite at night, Jeff awakens from a terrifying precognitive dream in which he had a vision of his father shot by a gunman with a rifle hiding in a church's bell tower in a small Mexican town.A friendly young man rides with the Sonnetts for awhile on his way to join the Army, but in town he is lured away by a wealth-talking ruthless buffalo hunter who may start an Indian war with his excess killing of the animals.Will and Jeff travel to a Mexican town two miles south of the border that has been taken over by an outlaw gang and where they have been told James Sonnett may be found.Part Two: After Jim Sonnett meets and defeats his adversary on the trail, he assumes the man's identity as the cattlemen's enforcer in order to foil their plan to drive out the sheep ranchers from the territory.Jim Sonnett spends some romantic time with a female friend who owns a hotel and saloon unaware that his life is in danger and she has a role in the outcome.Newspaper stories attract Jim to the town, but the rancher whose son was killed and his allied crooked sheriff want to make sure he never gets to testify.Will and Jeff learn of the trial and ride to the town to make sure Jim isn't gunned down if he is able to sneak into the courthouse, which appears to be the only way he can testify to save the man.Will and Jeff meet a farmer, his wife, and their young son who have had a string of bad luck but who helped Jim a year ago when he needed a place to rest, so they decide to stay awhile and offer to help build their new home, plow their field, and move a valuable piano the wife cherishes as a reminder of better days in the past.In 1970, series creators Dick Carr and Aaron Spelling worked again with Walter Brennan on the Western made-for-TV movie sequel The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again.
WesternAaron SpellingHarry BaschPeter B. GermanoKathleen HiteJames KomackRobert PiroshJack ArnoldThomas CarrIrving J. MooreMichael O'HerlihyRichard C. SarafianJud TaylorJean YarbroughWalter BrennanDack RamboHugo FriedhoferEarle HagenFred SteinerDanny ThomasDick ClarkThomasSpellingWestern television seriestelevision networkThe Mod SquadCBS Television DistributionKWP StudiosMark Goodson-Bill TodmanBrandedLos AngelesWildwood Regional ParkThousand Oaks, CaliforniaJack Nicholsoncharacter actorcatch phraseJason EversThe TycoonAcademy AwardClaude AkinsEdward AndrewsR.G. ArmstrongJames BestJoan BlondellJ.D. CannonAhna CapriAnthony CarusoLonny ChapmanEllen CorbyRoyal DanoJim DavisDon DubbinsJack ElamJane ElliotVirginia GreggCharles GrodinKevin HagenMyron HealeyRex HolmanBo HopkinsDennis HopperHenry JonesCloris LeachmanNora MarloweStrother MartinSean McCloryJohn MilfordGreg MullaveyJay NovelloRobert PineJudson PrattDenver PyleFord RaineyMadlyn RhueBing RussellWilliam SchallertJacqueline ScottWilliam SmithHarry Dean StantonKarl SwensonDub TaylorJoan Van ArkJames WainwrightJess WaltonMills WatsonRobert J. WilkeFour Star PlayhouseDick PowellBronson CanyonBernard L. KowalskiPaul FixJ. Pat O'MalleyJean YarboroughPaul WexlerRayford BarnesEdward J. LaksoDon Diamond
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