List of Maverick episodes
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This site serves as an adjunct, due to article space constraints, to Maverick, a page about the 1957 western television series created by Roy Huggins and featuring James Garner, Jack Kelly, and Roger Moore.
Contents |
[edit] Series leads
Bret Maverick: James Garner (seasons 1-4; 55 episodes)
Bart Maverick: Jack Kelly (seasons 1-5; 75 episodes)
Beau Maverick: Roger Moore (season 4; 14 episodes*)
Brent Maverick: Robert Colbert (season 4; 2 episodes*)
- * Moore appeared in a total of 15 episodes, but he played a different character in the second season Maverick episode "The Rivals", while Colbert appeared in a different role in the fourth season episode "Hadley's Hunters" before making two appearances as Brent Maverick.
[edit] Featured recurring characters
Dandy Jim Buckley: Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (seasons 1-2; 5 episodes)
Samantha Crawford: Diane Brewster (seasons 1-2; 4 episodes)
Gentleman Jack Darby: Richard Long (seasons 2-3; 4 episodes)
Big Mike McComb: Leo Gordon (seasons 1-2; 5 episodes)
Cindy Lou Brown: Arlene Howell (season 2; 3 episodes)**
- ** Howell appeared in a total of 5 episodes, playing Brown three times and different characters in two other episodes.
Also:
Modesty Blaine: Mona Freeman and Kathleen Crowley
Melanie Blake: Kathleen Crowley
Doc Holliday: Gerald Mohr and Peter Breck
Big Ed Murphy: John Dehner and Andrew Duggan
A young Clint Eastwood appears as Bret's nemesis in the second season's Duel At Sundown.
Ben Gage delivers deft Marshal Matt Dillon parodies in four different episodes, playing sheriffs with different names but always looking and sounding like James Arness in Gunsmoke while delivering comedic lines.
(More information is available at Maverick (TV series).)
[edit] First season (1957-1958)
James Garner (as Bret Maverick) is the sole star for the first seven episodes. With episode eight, he's joined by Jack Kelly as brother Bart Maverick. From that point on, the two alternate leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional episode; Garner and Kelly appeared together in sixteen fondly remembered episodes. Recurring characters include rival gamblers/operators Samantha Crawford, Dandy Jim Buckley and Big Mike McComb.
Episode Title | Stars and Featured Recurring Characters | ||||
Bret Maverick | Bart Maverick | Dandy Jim Buckley | Samantha Crawford | Big Mike McComb | |
War of the Silver Kings | Bret | Big Mike | |||
> Note: With Edmund Lowe. | |||||
Point Blank | Bret | ||||
> Note: Huggins had written this episode as the pilot but Warner Brothers insisted on first airing an episode based on a property they previously owned. This was done in order to deny Huggins the residuals for creating the series, a typical gambit for the studio at that time. Huggins wasn't given credit as series creator by the studio until the movie version with Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and Garner almost forty years later. | |||||
According to Hoyle | Bret | Samantha | Big Mike | ||
> Note: Debut of Samantha Crawford, in a high-stakes riverboat poker contest with Bret. | |||||
Ghost Rider | Bret | ||||
> Note: With Stacy Keach's lookalike father Stacy Keach, Sr. as a sheriff, Joanna Barnes, and Edd Byrnes. | |||||
The Long Hunt | Bret | ||||
Stage West | Bret | ||||
> Note: Based on a Louis Lamour story. With Erin O'Brien, Edd Byrnes, Ray Teal, and Chubby Johnson. O'Brien's name is listed at the beginning of the episode after Garner's, an honor only accorded a small handful of actors during the series (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Peggy King, etc.). | |||||
Relic of Fort Tejon | Bret | ||||
> Note: Features Bret and a camel. | |||||
Hostage! | Bret | Bart | |||
> Note: Bart's first episode. Huggins wisely has Bart tied up and viciously beaten by a thug as an initiation into the series, to gain viewer sympathy. For his first several episodes, Jack Kelly as Bart wore a grey suit similar in color to his hat for greater contrast with Garner's standard black suit, but eventually switched to mainly a black suit himself while keeping the lighter colored hat, which remained his main costume through most of the run of the series. In his videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television, Roy Huggins noted that, unlike Garner's light touch, Kelly delivered a funny line as though he were "dropping a load of coal," and that Kelly was hilariously entertaining when he was "off camera." Critics noted how charismatic Kelly and Garner were as a team, however, and that Kelly did his finest work in his episodes with Garner. | |||||
Stampede | Bret | Dandy Jim | |||
> Note: Dandy Jim Buckley's first of five memorable appearances. One of many episodes that begin on a Mississippi riverboat, a very frequent setting. "Stampede" is often cited by critics as one of the most entertaining installments, especially noting Zimbalist's humorous performance. | |||||
The Jeweled Gun | Bret | Bart | |||
> Note: Bret appears only briefly; the first of flamboyantly seductive Kathleen Crowley's many roles in the series. Some of the plotline was later cannabilized for a Garner episode entitled "A Rage for Vengeance." The early part of the episode occurs in a Spanish-influenced town. Huggins noted in an interview that Garner was originally slated to play Kelly's role in this popular episode but the leads were switched at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. Although Bart makes brief appearances in several Bret episodes, this is the only time Bret does so in a Bart episode. This is essentially Kelly's first solo episode. | |||||
The Wrecker | Bret | Bart | |||
> Note: Based on a Robert Louis Stevenson ocean adventure. This is the only episode with substantial time accorded to both brothers in which Kelly's role is larger than Garner's, although Bret sets the operation up and appears noticeably more knowledgeable about the situation than Bart in their scenes together. The two-brother scripts designated the brothers as "Maverick 1" and "Maverick 2," with Garner choosing which role he wanted to play. All other scripts, except one, were originally written with Garner in mind and the character designated as "Bret," which would later be changed to "Bart" during filming if Kelly were cast instead. | |||||
The Quick and the Dead | Bret | ||||
> Note: With Gerald Mohr in a powerful performance as Doc Holliday and film noir queen Marie Windsor as a saloon owner. | |||||
Naked Gallows | Bart | ||||
> Note: With Mike Connors and Morris Ankrum. | |||||
The Comstock Conspiracy | Bret | ||||
> Note: With Ruta Lee and Werner Klemperer. | |||||
The Third Rider | Bart | ||||
> Note: With Dick Foran as a lawman. | |||||
Rage for Vengeance | Bret | ||||
> Note: The only episode in the series in which Bret openly falls in love and wants to actually get married, despite a glaring plot similarity to earlier episode "The Jewelled Gun." It's intriguing to imagine Bret and Bart comparing notes later and each saying, "Yeah, the same thing happened to me." | |||||
Rope of Cards | Bret | ||||
> Note: According to legend, practically every deck of cards in the United States sold out the day after this episode's first broadcast. | |||||
Diamond in the Rough | Bart | ||||
Day of Reckoning | Bret | ||||
The Savage Hills | Bart | Samantha | |||
> Note: Bart takes a turn with the glamorous Samantha Crawford on a riverboat adventure. | |||||
Trail West to Fury | Bret | Bart | Dandy Jim | ||
> Note: A flashback episode about the Maverick brothers returning from the Civil War, as told to Buckley while the three of them are trapped during a flood. The plotline involves the Maverick brothers having to avoid Texas after being falsely accused of murder there, with only a mysteriously disappeared "tall man" as a witness who could exonerate them if only they could locate him. Writer/producer Roy Huggins would eventually recycle this plot as the basis for his later television series The Fugitive, with Diane Brewster in a recurring cameo role as Richard Kimble's murdered wife. | |||||
The Burning Sky | Bart | ||||
> Note: With a Mexican Gerald Mohr and Joanna Barnes. The ratings for Kelly's episodes were always minisculely higher in the first two seasons than Garner's. Roy Huggins mentioned in his videotaped Archive of American Television interview that he believed that this was a reflection of how well the audience liked Garner's episodes and the consequent word of mouth, so that viewers, marvelously entertained the previous week, would be at their sets for the following episode, which would usually feature Kelly instead. The rating jumps for Kelly's episodes were tiny enough that they fell within the margin of error, but were remarkable because of their consistency. | |||||
The Seventh Hand | Bret | Samantha | |||
> Note: Samantha speculates about what it would be like if she and Bret were married. His response: "We couldn't afford it." | |||||
Plunder of Paradise | Bart | Big Mike | |||
> Note: With Ruta Lee as a dance hall singer. | |||||
Black Fire | Bret | ||||
> Note: Oddly, a glaringly unnecessary narration by Bart is tacked onto this episode featuring only Bret, probably to compensate for the fact that Garner had introduced Kelly's early solo episodes. This was one of only two Garner episodes not included in Columbia House's 1990s library of series videotapes (the other was "Holiday at Hollow Rock"). Hans Conreid plays a friend who recruits Bret to borrow his identity for a family reunion. | |||||
Burial Ground of the Gods | Bart | ||||
> Note: With Claude Akins. | |||||
Seed of Deception | Bret | Bart | |||
> Note: Bret and Bart are mistaken for Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp in this two-brother episode. Huggins' wife Adele Mara plays a saloon dancer, and Bart is still wearing his grey suit. |
[edit] Second season (1958-1959)
Garner and Kelly continue as alternating leads, with the odd 'team-up' episode. Semi-regulars Samatha Crawford and Dandy Jim Buckley exit partway through the season; new semi-regulars include Cindy Lou Brown and Gentleman Jack Darby. Big Mike McComb also returns from season 1.
Episode Title | Stars and Featured Recurring Characters | ||||||
Bret Maverick | Bart Maverick | Dandy Jim Buckley | Samantha Crawford | Big Mike McComb | Cindy Lou Brown | Gentleman Jack Darby | |
The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick | Bret | ||||||
Lonesome Reunion | Bret | ||||||
> Note: With John Russell and Joanna Barnes. | |||||||
Alias Bart Maverick | Bart | Cindy Lou | Jack | ||||
> Note: Debuts of Gentleman Jack Darby and Cindy Lou Brown. | |||||||
The Belcastle Brand | Bret | ||||||
> Note: Garner's favorite episode. With Reginald Owen. | |||||||
High Card Hangs | Bart | Dandy Jim | |||||
> Note: With Martin Landau. Notice how different Dandy Jim Buckley's friendship with Bart is from his basically adversarial relationship with Bret. | |||||||
Escape to Tampico | Bret | ||||||
> Note: Set in Mexico, this unique episode featured Gerald Mohr as a variation of Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca character, shot on the original Casablanca set. | |||||||
The Judas Mask | Bart | ||||||
The Jail at Junction Flats | Bret | Dandy Jim | |||||
> Note: A memorable episode with Dandy Jim Buckley, a comical character created by Huggins as a version of Bret without the scruples. As noted earlier, Buckley's relationships with Bret and Bart are quite different. Dan Blocker briefly appears in flashback as a gunslinger, before getting the role of Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza. | |||||||
The 39th Star | Bart | ||||||
Shady Deal At Sunny Acres | Bret | Bart | Dandy Jim | Samantha | Big Mike | Cindy Lou | Jack |
> Note: The only episode to feature all of the regular Maverick characters from the first three seasons, and the final episode for Samantha and Dandy Jim. This is arguably the single most talked-about episode of the series, and usually the one Garner mentions first in interviews. | |||||||
Island in the Swamp | Bret | ||||||
> Note: With Edgar Buchanan, Arlene Howell, and Erin O'Brien. Note that Howell does not play Cindy Lou Brown here, despite having just played the character in the previous episode. Howell would return to the role of Cindy Lou Brown 12 episodes later, in "Passage To Fort Doom". | |||||||
Prey of the Cat | Bart | ||||||
> Note: With Wayne Morris. | |||||||
Holiday at Hollow Rock | Bret | ||||||
> Note: Bret rides into town to bet on the annual horse race, stopwatch in hand. This was one of two Garner episodes (the other being "Black Fire") not included in Columbia House's 1990s library of series videotapes. | |||||||
The Spanish Dancer | Bart | Jack | |||||
> Note: Featuring Huggins' wife Adele Mara as a dancer in a gold rush mining camp, and Slim Pickens in a small role. | |||||||
Game of Chance | Bret | Bart | |||||
> Note: With Belgian-born gamine Roxane Berard in an episode according more or less equal time to Bret and Bart. Berard, an actress continuously compared with Audrey Hepburn, portrays a charming French countess. | |||||||
Gun-Shy | Bret | ||||||
> Note: This is Maverick's famous Gunsmoke spoof, with Ben Gage as Marshal Mort Dooley (a comical version of Marshal Matt Dillon). | |||||||
Two Beggars on Horseback | Bret | Bart | |||||
> Note: Jack Kelly's favorite episode, featuring a desperate race between the brothers to cash a check. This is also the only time in the series in which Kelly's character wears a black hat; both brothers wear black hats in the opening sequences until Bart has to give his to a stable operator in order to secure a horse. | |||||||
The Rivals | Bret | Bart | |||||
> Note: Features Roger Moore playing a non-Maverick character in a sophisticated drawing room comedy based on a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan originally produced in 1775. Moore would later be a regular series lead as Beau Maverick in season 4. Bart appears only briefly in this episode. The physical resemblance between James Garner and Roger Moore in this episode is striking, and the characters switch identities as part of the storyline. | |||||||
Duel At Sundown | Bret | Bart | |||||
> Note: Features villainous gunfighter Clint Eastwood in an epic fistfight with Bret. Bart appears only briefly in this episode. Edgar Buchanan plays a close friend of Bret's while Abby Dalton portrays Buchanan's character's fetching daughter. | |||||||
Yellow River | Bart | ||||||
> Note: With Tol Avery and Robert Conrad. | |||||||
The Saga of Waco Williams | Bret | ||||||
> Note: This revered episode drew the largest viewership during the series' original run. Louise Fletcher, who won an Oscar as evil Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest eighteen years later, plays the glamorous young leading lady. Wayde Preston, later of Colt .45, played Waco Williams, a character that writer-producer Stephen J. Cannell later proudly purloined as the prototype for "Lance White," Tom Selleck's recurring role on The Rockford Files. Both actors were immediately catapulted by these episodes into their own series, western Colt .45 for Preston and detective show Magnum, P.I. for Selleck. | |||||||
The Brasada Spur | Bart | ||||||
> Note: With Julie Adams. | |||||||
Passage to Fort Doom | Bart | Cindy Lou | |||||
> Note: Cindy Lou Brown's final appearance, although actress Arlene Howell would return to the series to play a different role in the fifth season "Bonanza" spoof. | |||||||
Two Tickets to Ten Strike | Bret | ||||||
> Note: Features Connie Stevens and Adam West. | |||||||
Betrayal | Bart | ||||||
> Note: With Patricia Crowley and Ruta Lee. | |||||||
The Strange Journey of Jenny Hill | Bret | Big Mike | |||||
> Note: Big Mike McComb's final appearance. Singer Jenny Hill (Peggy King) can't figure out why Bret keeps following her from town to town. Peggy King was billed at the beginning of the episode in the opening titles, after Garner, an extremely rare occurrence in the series. Others billed at the opening of other episodes include Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Dandy Jim Buckley, Roger Moore in his non-Beau Maverick guest appearance in "The Rivals," and Erin O'Brien in the Louis Lamour story "Stage West." |
[edit] Third season (1959-1960)
Writer/creator Roy Huggins leaves the show, arguably resulting in a general decline in script quality. Garner and Kelly are still the leads, usually appearing separately but sometimes appearing in team-up episodes. Of the recurring characters, only Gentleman Jack Darby returns for season 3, and only for one episode.
Episode Title | Stars and Featured Recurring Characters | ||
Bret Maverick | Bart Maverick | Gentleman Jack Darby | |
Pappy | Bret | Bart | |
> Note: Features dual roles for series stars Garner and Kelly, as 'Pappy' Beaurgard Maverick, and Uncle Bentley Maverick, respectively (the previous generation of Maverick brothers, "Beau and Bent"). With Adam West, Troy Donahue, Henry Daniell, and Chubby Johnson. | |||
Royal Four-Flush | Bart | ||
> Note: With Roxane Berard. | |||
The Sheriff of Duck 'n' Shoot | Bret | Bart | |
> Note: Watch Bret's responses when he's offered the job of sheriff in an insanely rowdy town. With Chubby Johnson as a genial deputy. | |||
You Can't Beat the Percentage | Bart | ||
> Note: With Gerald Mohr. | |||
The Cats of Paradise | Bret | ||
> Note: Bret faces Buddy Ebsen as a trigger-happy gunslinger and Mona Freeman as a wild-eyed and insanely treacherous Modesty Blaine. | |||
A Tale of Three Cities | Bart | ||
> Note: Ben Gage does his Marshal Matt Dillon parody again; also featuring Patricia Crowley. | |||
Full House | Bret | ||
> Note: With young Joel Grey as Billy the Kid, and Garner performing a bravura pistol-twirling exhibition as part of the plot. | |||
The Lass With the Poisonous Air | Bart | ||
> Note: With Stacy Keach, Sr., an almost exact double for his more famous son Stacy Keach. | |||
The Ghost Soldiers | Bret | ||
> Note: A desperately beleaguered Bret must figure out some way to cope with an ocean of Native Americans laying siege to an almost-empty fort. Everyone inside is about to be killed, including him. | |||
Easy Mark | Bart | ||
> Note: With Edgar Buchanan and Jack Buetel (who'd played Billy the Kid in the 1943 movie The Outlaw). | |||
A Fellow's Brother | Bret | Bart | |
> Note: Bart appears only briefly in this episode. With Adam West. | |||
Trooper Maverick | Bart | ||
Maverick Springs | Bret | Bart | |
> Note: With Kathleen Crowley as Mae West-like Melanie Blake and Tol Avery as the dulcet-toned villain. | |||
The Goose-Drownder | Bart | Jack | |
> Note: Final appearance of Richard Long as Gentleman Jack Darby. | |||
A Cure for Johnny Rain | Bret | ||
> Note: Johnny and whiskey don't mix. | |||
The Marquessa | Bart | ||
> Note: With Adele Mara; Bart wins a saloon and drinks are on the house. | |||
The Cruise of the Cynthia B | Bret | Bart | |
> Note: Bart appears only briefly in this riverboat episode. With Mona Freeman as a mad Modesty Blaine, a role that would be played quite differently by Kathleen Crowley later in the series. | |||
Maverick and Juliet | Bret | Bart | |
> Note: Bret and Bart run afoul of feuding hillbillies. | |||
The White Widow | Bart | ||
> Note: With Julie Adams. | |||
Guatemala City | Bret | ||
> Note: Bret searches for an ex-girlfriend in Guatemala and befriends a young female street urchin. With Patric Knowles. | |||
The People's Friend | Bart | ||
> Note: Features Bart as a local politician, a role Jack Kelly would play for real later in life. | |||
A Flock of Trouble | Bret | ||
> Note: Bret wins a herd of sheep in a poker game, thinking they're cattle. | |||
The Iron Hand | Bart | ||
> Note: Features a plump and acne-scarred Robert Redford playing a supporting role in this spirited cattle drive adventure. | |||
The Resurrection of Joe November | Bret | ||
> Note: A riverboat adventure set primarily in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, with Roxane Berard and Don 'Red' Barry. | |||
The Misfortune Teller | Bret | ||
> Note: Another spoof of Gunsmoke's Marshal Matt Dillon with Ben Gage, this time also featuring Kathleen Crowley in her Mae West-like role of Melanie Blake, last seen in "Maverick Springs," which she mentions. | |||
Greenbacks, Unlimited | Bret | ||
> Note: With John Dehner in a wondrous comic turn as gang leader Big Ed Murphy, a role that Andrew Duggan would play in a subsequent season. |
[edit] Fourth season (1960-1961)
Garner leaves the show in a contract dispute; his one episode this season, also featuring Kelly, is actually a holdover filmed in season 3 (Bret and Bart had appeared in sixteen episodes together over the course of the series by the time Garner departs). Jack Kelly stays on as Bart Maverick, and is joined as alternate lead by Roger Moore as Cousin Beau Maverick. Kelly and Moore are also featured in occasional two-cousin episodes.
Unhappy with the scripts, Moore leaves the show before season's end, remarking that if his stories had been as good as Garner's in the first two seasons, he would have stayed. He had filmed fourteen episodes as Beau. Around the same time, the producers cast Garner lookalike Robert Colbert as brother Brent Maverick; he gets one team-up episode with Bart and one solo adventure before season 4 comes to a close. Brent was dressed identically to Bret, and the studio had originally intended for Bart, Beau, and Brent to all be on the series simultaneously, but Roger Moore had quit by the time Colbert's episodes aired. Publicity photos survive picturing the three of them together, however.
Episode Title | Starring | |||
Bart Maverick | Beau Maverick | Bret Maverick | Brent Maverick | |
The Bundle From Britain | Bart | Beau | ||
> Note: Roger Moore's first appearance as Cousin Beau, met at the dock by Bart after crossing the Atlantic from England. An evenly balanced two-cousin episode according more or less equal time to each Maverick. | ||||
Hadley's Hunters | Bart | |||
> Note: This episode features several ten-second cameos from western leads in other Warner Brothers series, including Lawman, Bronco, Cheyenne, and Sugarfoot. Garner lookalike Robert Colbert also appeared as a key character, wearing a hat similar to Bret's, then was cast later in the season as a new Maverick brother named Brent. Edgar Buchanan plays a rogue sheriff and George Kennedy portrays his deputy. | ||||
The Town That Wasn't There | Beau | |||
> Note: How could a whole town simply disappear without a trace? | ||||
Arizona Black Maria | Bart | |||
> Note: With a pre-Gilligan Alan Hale, Jr. and Joanna Barnes. | ||||
Last Wire From Stop Gap | Bart | Beau | ||
> Note: With Tol Avery. | ||||
Mano Nera | Bart | |||
> Note: With Gerald Mohr. | ||||
A Bullet For the Teacher | Beau | |||
> Note: With Kathleen Crowley and Max Baer, Jr.. | ||||
The Witch of Hound Dog | Bart | |||
> Note: With Wayde Preston. | ||||
Thunder From the North | Beau | |||
> Note: Beau finds himself embroiled with a nest of unscrupulous shopkeepers who've been methodically swindling the local Native American tribe. | ||||
The Maverick Line | Bart | Bret | ||
> Note: Bret's last appearance for almost twenty years (until the 1978 TV-movie The New Maverick), in a memorable two-brother episode filmed the previous season with Buddy Ebsen as a comical highwayman and Chubby Johnson as a cantankerous stagecoach driver. This was originally slated to be the first episode of the season until Garner was granted his freedom from Warner Bros. by the courts and the studio realized that he wouldn't return to the series, whereupon "The Bundle From Britain" with Roger Moore became the season's first offering instead. Bret and Bart have more or less equal screen time in this episode, in which they inherit a stagecoach business they don't want. | ||||
Bolt From the Blue | Beau | |||
> Note: Written & directed by Robert Altman, with Sugarfoot's Will Hutchins playing a young lawyer, obviously Sugarfoot but never named. | ||||
Kiz | Bart | Beau | ||
> Note: With Kathleen Crowley as Kiz, who tells Beau that a killer is after her, convincing him that she's crazy. | ||||
Dodge City or Bust | Bart | |||
> Note: With Howard McNear. | ||||
The Bold Fenian Men | Beau | |||
> Note: An Army colonel forces Beau to infiltrate a band of Irish revolutionaries. | ||||
Destination Devil's Flat | Bart | |||
> Note: With Peter Breck, Merry Anders, and Chubby Johnson. | ||||
A State of Siege | Bart | |||
> Note: With Slim Pickens. | ||||
Family Pride | Beau | |||
> Note: With Karl Swenson, Denver Pyle, and Stacy Keach, Sr.. | ||||
The Cactus Switch | Bart | Beau | ||
> Note: With Edgar Buchanan (later "Uncle Joe" on Petticoat Junction) as a ruthless villain, and Chubby Johnson. | ||||
Dutchman's Gold | Beau | |||
> Note: With Mala Powers. | ||||
The Ice Man | Bart | |||
> Note: With Andrew Duggan and a frozen corpse. | ||||
Diamond Flush | Beau | |||
> Note: With Roxane Berard. | ||||
Last Stop: Oblivion | Bart | |||
> Note: With a vicious Don 'Red' Barry and a murderous Buddy Ebsen. | ||||
Flood's Folly | Beau | |||
Maverick At Law | Bart | |||
> Note: With Tol Avery. | ||||
Red Dog | Beau | |||
> Note: Beau's final episode. With John Carradine and Lee Van Cleef. | ||||
The Deadly Image | Bart | |||
> Note: This is the inevitable episode---a staple in almost every TV series---in which the lead character has an evil exact double played by the same actor, with the same voice. With Gerald Mohr. | ||||
Triple Indemnity | Bart | |||
> Note: With Peter Breck as Doc Holiday. | ||||
The Forbidden City | Bart | Brent | ||
> Note: Strapping Garner lookalike Robert Colbert's debut as Brent Maverick, a character dressed exactly like Bret Maverick. Bart only appears rather briefly in the episode. When the studio told contract player Colbert that he'd have to play a role patterned so precisely after Garner's, he said, "Put me in a dress and call me Brenda, but don't do this to me." | ||||
Substitute Gun | Bart | |||
> Note: With Coleen Gray, the actress who played John Wayne's character's fiancee at the beginning of the 1948 movie Red River. | ||||
Benefit of the Doubt | Brent | |||
> Note: The second and last appearance of Brent Maverick, and his only solo episode. With Ellen Burstyn and Slim Pickens. | ||||
The Devil's Necklace (Parts I & II) | Bart | |||
> Note: The only two-part episode in the series, involving a fort in which everyone but Bart had been killed by Native Americans. With John Dehner, Steve Brodie, John Hoyt, and Chad Everett. |
[edit] Fifth season (1961-1962)
Jack Kelly is now the sole star of new Maverick episodes. This season's episodes alternated with reruns of some of Garner's earlier shows (both solo and Garner/Kelly team-ups), but during Kelly's new installments, neither Bret, Beau, nor Brent are ever mentioned by the now-solo Bart Maverick: the show had finally returned to its single-Maverick roots, although with a different Maverick. However, Garner's name once again appears in the opening credits of all the newly produced shows, albeit now with second billing under Kelly. Critics have cited a sharper drop-off in script quality than ever in the final season's new episodes.
Episode Title | Starring | Notes | |
Bart Maverick | |||
Dade City Dodge | Bart | With Kathleen Crowley. | |
The Art Lovers | Bart | With Jack Cassidy; Bart is sentenced to being a butler after being cheated by an acquaintance. | |
The Golden Fleecing | Bart | With John Qualen; Bart becomes an impromptu stock broker, dealing in Chinatown. | |
Three Queens Full | Bart | Bonanza spoof with Jim Backus and Merry Anders, featuring the characters "Moose" and "Small Paul" Wheelwright. Amusingly, Backus plays the patriarch patterned after stentorian Lorne Greene's Bonanza role. | |
A Technical Error | Bart | With Peter Breck as Doc Holliday and Ben Gage as a sheriff, spoofing Marshal Matt Dillon and Gunsmoke, as he'd done on "Maverick" in "Gun-Shy", "A Tale of Three Cities," and "The Misfortune Teller." Bart wins a near-bankrupt bank. | |
Poker Face | Bart | With Tol Avery; while traveling by stagecoach, Bart strikes a bargain with a highwayman. | |
Mr. Muldoon's Partner | Bart | An Irish-themed leprechaun comedy with Mickey Rooney's lookalike son, Tim Rooney. The only episode in which Kelly wears his hat on the back of his head for long stretches the way Garner used to. | |
Epitaph for a Gambler | Bart | With film noir queen Marie Windsor; Bart wishes he hadn't won that casino after all. | |
The Maverick Report | Bart | With Peter Breck as Doc Holliday; Bart wins a newspaper that's about to be sued by a senator. | |
Marshall Maverick | Bart | With John Dehner, and Peter Breck as Doc Holliday | |
The Troubled Heir | Bart | With Kathleen Crowley and Alan Hale, Jr.. | |
The Money Machine | Bart | With Andrew Duggan as Big Ed Murphy, a role played in Greenbacks, Unlimited during the third season by John Dehner. | |
One of Our Trains Is Missing | Bart | With Kathleen Crowley as Modesty Blaine, a role played in earlier episodes by Mona Freeman. Jack Kelly always maintained that no one from the studio called to tell him that the series had been canceled; he read about it in the newspaper. |
[edit] Other Maverick sightings
- Maverick supporting character Samantha Crawford (played by Diane Brewster) first appeared in a 1956 episode of Cheyenne entitled "The Dark Rider". Her name was writer/producer Roy Huggins' mother's maiden name.
- Alongside many other western stars, James Garner made a quick gag appearance as Bret Maverick in the 1959 Bob Hope western/comedy Alias Jesse James. Due to legal complications and rights-clearance issues, many current prints of this film do not contain Garner's appearance, but it was in the original theatrical cut.
- James Garner and Jack Kelly appeared as Bret and Bart in the 1978 TV movie The New Maverick, which centered around the adventures of cousin Ben Maverick, played by Charles Frank. Garner has at least as much screen time as Frank, but Kelly only appears for a few memorable minutes near the end, and in some clips from the 1957 series near the beginning.
- Garner appeared briefly as Bret in the first episode of Young Maverick, a short-lived 1979 TV series continuing the adventures of Ben Maverick (again played by Frank). Despite the title, 32-year-old Frank was three years older than Garner had been at the beginning of the original series.
- Garner starred in a sequel TV series from 1981-1982 called Bret Maverick, concerning the further adventures of Bret. Although Bret Maverick was twenty years older and was now quite famous throughout the west, this show is actually set further back in time than the original series; Garner and his staff figured no one would notice, and apparently nobody did. Garner subsequently admitted that the writing wasn't up to the level of the original series, which was what sunk the show (although ratings were fairly good at the time of cancellation). Huggins, conspicuously uninvolved in this series, said that he thought the problem was that Maverick, always a traveler in the original show, was stuck in a single town for this one. Jack Kelly turned up as Bart Maverick in the series' final episode. In the never-filmed second season, for which a number of episodes had been actually written and presented to Kelly prior to the cancellation, Bret was going to travel more while Bart managed the bar back in Arizona.
- The 2-hour opening episode of Bret Maverick was subsequently trimmed and frequently rerun on local television stations as a TV-movie under the title Bret Maverick: The Lazy Ace.
- Along with many other stars of 50s and 60s TV westerns, Jack Kelly made a brief cameo appearance as Bart Maverick in the 1991 TV movie The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw. Kelly died the following year.
- Garner had a significant supporting role in the 1994 film version of Maverick, which starred Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick and Jodie Foster as a character modeled after Samantha Crawford.
- "Maverick" brand playing cards have been available in America for decades, and the Dallas Mavericks sports team was named after Garner, one of the original owners, according to Garner's Archive of American Television interview.
- On April 21, 2006, a ten-foot statue of James Garner as Bret Maverick was unveiled in Garner's original hometown of Norman, Oklahoma. Garner was present at the ceremony.
[edit] See also
- Maverick, a much more complete look at the 1957 television series created by Roy Huggins and starring James Garner, Jack Kelly, and Roger Moore.