Good episode.. So good that the writers used the same storyline in Maverick season 2 episode 20...
3 Reviews
Good story!!
tacjr22-505-5634117 September 2018
It IS Samantha Crawford
schappe122 January 2023
In the book Warner Brothers Television by Lynn Woolley, Robert W. Malsbary and Robert G. Strange Jr., Diane Brewster's character, Samantha Crawford is discussed on pages 65-67: "Samantha, commonly known as 'Sam', was a beautiful, intelligent, avaricious dealer of the deck who would stop at nothing to take your last dollar...using her feminine charm to the fullest, (complete with 'Southern Belle' accent), Sam would make anyone her puppet.... Bret first came within her clutches when she beat his straight with only a pair of nines, costing him $20,000. She was sly enough to lure Bret into agreeing to play "According to Hoyle"...Brother Bart also later got mixed up with Sam. In "The Savage Hills" episode of Maverick, Sam accidentally awakened Bart while rifling through his clothes pockets in the middle of the night in his hotel room...The importance of Samantha cannot be over-stated. She was the original Maverick. On the Cheyenne segment of Warner Brothers Presents, Samantha debuted debuted as the Maverick prototype in an episode entitled "Dark Rider", which aired September 11, 1956. Owing Cheyenne Bodie money, she gave him the slip. Cheyenne caught up with her, only to have her get away again. Said Huggins "Maverick really started with Samantha". Page 24 of the same book says "The Dark Rider" was "a test show for Maverick. This episode pit Cheyenne against Samantha Crawford, (Diane Brewster), who will return later to plague Bret and Bart."
Ed Robertson's book "Maverick, Legend of the West" on page 66 says "I had used Diane Brewster before I knew that she was a good actress. She had played a similar character in an episode of Cheyenne called "The Dark Rider" and I'm sure I thought of her when I came up with the character Samantha Crawford"..."The Dark Rider is the focus of an interesting chapter in the history of Maverick. In "The Dark Rider", Brewster's character - a con artist - leads a group of men on a cattle drive to Kansas. Cheyenne (Clint Walker) joins the group and eventually saves their lives by unmaking a killer...The name of Brewster's character in "The Dark Rider" is Samantha, a fact which has led to one of the biggest myths surrounding Maverick, i.e. That "The Dark Rider" was designed as a prototype for the Maverick series, and that the 'Samantha' played by Brewster in that show was the same character she played on Maverick. Ironically, Roy Huggins himself created that myth when he told TV Guide in a 1959 interview that Maverick rally started with Samantha."
"Huggins remembers making that remark, but he also cautions that comments such as "Maverick really started with. Samantha" have to be understood in their proper context. Sometimes, when you're interviewed, you make statements that are exaggerations for the sake of the moment. And sometimes those exaggerations are taken quite literally and repeated until they become mythic in proportion. Since I was the one that started this particular myth about Samantha Crawford, let me be the one to end it. Maverick did not start with Samantha, even if I said that in TV Guide and The Dark Rider was not a forerunner of Maverick."
"There are, however, two interesting footnotes to the "Dark Rider" myth. Besides Diane Brewster, Samantha Crawford on Maverick and the Samantha character on Cheyenne have something else in common. Roy Huggins named both characters after his mother. "My mother's name was Samantha and Crawford was her maiden name" And there is a connection between The Dark Rider and Maverick: Huggins took the script and had it rewritten as a Maverick episode "Yellow River"
I read this and pulled out my DVD of "The Dark Rider". Very early on, in the scene in the church, Cheyenne asks Samantha what her name is and she replies "Samantha Crawford". The Dark Rider may not have bene a protoype for Maverick but the Samantha in The Dark Rider, is very clearly the same character who showed up on Maverick a year later.
Ed Robertson's book "Maverick, Legend of the West" on page 66 says "I had used Diane Brewster before I knew that she was a good actress. She had played a similar character in an episode of Cheyenne called "The Dark Rider" and I'm sure I thought of her when I came up with the character Samantha Crawford"..."The Dark Rider is the focus of an interesting chapter in the history of Maverick. In "The Dark Rider", Brewster's character - a con artist - leads a group of men on a cattle drive to Kansas. Cheyenne (Clint Walker) joins the group and eventually saves their lives by unmaking a killer...The name of Brewster's character in "The Dark Rider" is Samantha, a fact which has led to one of the biggest myths surrounding Maverick, i.e. That "The Dark Rider" was designed as a prototype for the Maverick series, and that the 'Samantha' played by Brewster in that show was the same character she played on Maverick. Ironically, Roy Huggins himself created that myth when he told TV Guide in a 1959 interview that Maverick rally started with Samantha."
"Huggins remembers making that remark, but he also cautions that comments such as "Maverick really started with. Samantha" have to be understood in their proper context. Sometimes, when you're interviewed, you make statements that are exaggerations for the sake of the moment. And sometimes those exaggerations are taken quite literally and repeated until they become mythic in proportion. Since I was the one that started this particular myth about Samantha Crawford, let me be the one to end it. Maverick did not start with Samantha, even if I said that in TV Guide and The Dark Rider was not a forerunner of Maverick."
"There are, however, two interesting footnotes to the "Dark Rider" myth. Besides Diane Brewster, Samantha Crawford on Maverick and the Samantha character on Cheyenne have something else in common. Roy Huggins named both characters after his mother. "My mother's name was Samantha and Crawford was her maiden name" And there is a connection between The Dark Rider and Maverick: Huggins took the script and had it rewritten as a Maverick episode "Yellow River"
I read this and pulled out my DVD of "The Dark Rider". Very early on, in the scene in the church, Cheyenne asks Samantha what her name is and she replies "Samantha Crawford". The Dark Rider may not have bene a protoype for Maverick but the Samantha in The Dark Rider, is very clearly the same character who showed up on Maverick a year later.
"You got your eyes on that big guy you tried to make trail boss?"
faunafan28 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Lew Lattimer demands to know. But somebody should be keeping an eye on Samantha Crawford.
The episode opens with the familiar bank robbery, but this one creates a certain air of mystery for what follows, and there are plenty of suspicious characters for Cheyenne Bodie to wade through before the various mysteries are solved.
Cheyenne's an astute man but he can still be taken in by a pretty face. When he meets Samantha ("Sam"), he believes the story she gives him about being pursued by two crooks who killed her brother. What trail-weary cowboy wouldn't believe those blue eyes, lilting voice, and sweet demeanor? She promises him $300 if he'll help her avoid her pursuers, but it turns out her story was just that-fiction. After he upholds his end of the deal but finds out he's been duped, he's still determined to get that $300, so he becomes the pursuer and traces her to a cattle drive headed for Kansas.
Cheyenne agrees to stick with the drive as a drover until they realize they need a trail boss (which he's sure they will do), at which point his price goes up. Sam's partners in the drive are Lew Lattimer, a hot-headed and hot-blooded ex-ranch foreman, a dodgy English duke, a portly German brewer, a harmonica-playing cook, and a young cowpoke who saves Sam from Lew's advances. They also pick up a priest along the way. Unfortunately, the party begins to dwindle because two of them are murdered, and suspicions abound. When they run out of water, only Cheyenne can save the herd. So after some literal wrangling and a decisive fistfight with the jealous Lew, Bodie takes over as trail boss, gets the herd and the remaining partners safely to town, and ties up all the loose ends by identifying the killer and finding the bank's stolen money. Lew had accused Sam of having eyes for Cheyenne, but it's a good thing that Cheyenne has his eyes on her because he also stops her from making off with the entire profit from the cattle drive.
Her last con before she leaves for Montana is an unexpected kiss for Cheyenne and a compliment no man could resist. "Somehow I feel I'm a different woman for having known you," she says sweetly. When Cheyenne is packing to leave, he finds his hard-earned trail boss fee is gone. So instead of heading back to Texas, he tears off for Montana.
Clint Walker manages to convey a lot with just a look, and in this episode it's clear that his initial trust quickly turned into skepticism, until the end when he's conned one last time. All the supporting players are fine. Diane Brewster has appeared in four episodes of "Cheyenne," playing a variety of characters, but Sam is the wiliest of them all. We can only suppose that Cheyenne Bodie caught up with her and got his money back. If she was really heading for Montana, that is.
The episode opens with the familiar bank robbery, but this one creates a certain air of mystery for what follows, and there are plenty of suspicious characters for Cheyenne Bodie to wade through before the various mysteries are solved.
Cheyenne's an astute man but he can still be taken in by a pretty face. When he meets Samantha ("Sam"), he believes the story she gives him about being pursued by two crooks who killed her brother. What trail-weary cowboy wouldn't believe those blue eyes, lilting voice, and sweet demeanor? She promises him $300 if he'll help her avoid her pursuers, but it turns out her story was just that-fiction. After he upholds his end of the deal but finds out he's been duped, he's still determined to get that $300, so he becomes the pursuer and traces her to a cattle drive headed for Kansas.
Cheyenne agrees to stick with the drive as a drover until they realize they need a trail boss (which he's sure they will do), at which point his price goes up. Sam's partners in the drive are Lew Lattimer, a hot-headed and hot-blooded ex-ranch foreman, a dodgy English duke, a portly German brewer, a harmonica-playing cook, and a young cowpoke who saves Sam from Lew's advances. They also pick up a priest along the way. Unfortunately, the party begins to dwindle because two of them are murdered, and suspicions abound. When they run out of water, only Cheyenne can save the herd. So after some literal wrangling and a decisive fistfight with the jealous Lew, Bodie takes over as trail boss, gets the herd and the remaining partners safely to town, and ties up all the loose ends by identifying the killer and finding the bank's stolen money. Lew had accused Sam of having eyes for Cheyenne, but it's a good thing that Cheyenne has his eyes on her because he also stops her from making off with the entire profit from the cattle drive.
Her last con before she leaves for Montana is an unexpected kiss for Cheyenne and a compliment no man could resist. "Somehow I feel I'm a different woman for having known you," she says sweetly. When Cheyenne is packing to leave, he finds his hard-earned trail boss fee is gone. So instead of heading back to Texas, he tears off for Montana.
Clint Walker manages to convey a lot with just a look, and in this episode it's clear that his initial trust quickly turned into skepticism, until the end when he's conned one last time. All the supporting players are fine. Diane Brewster has appeared in four episodes of "Cheyenne," playing a variety of characters, but Sam is the wiliest of them all. We can only suppose that Cheyenne Bodie caught up with her and got his money back. If she was really heading for Montana, that is.
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