User Reviews

"The Statue of San Sebastian" closed out this first season, boasting the star power of scene stealing John Carradine in welcome sympathetic mode as Father Bartolome, and hard driving Simon Oakland in more typical form as Mexican bandit Sancho Fernandez. The titular statue has never been returned to Father Bartolome's mission, wealthy landowner Ian Crown (Judson Pratt) unwilling to cooperate unless the poverty stricken monks pay him a fee of $2000. Richard Boone's Paladin is willing to intervene, not for money but the statue itself, if he can rid Crown of his most bitter enemy, Sancho Fernandez, who blames Crown for the untimely death of his brother due to a worn out saddle that gave way, and has been bleeding his wealth away ever since through robbery and cattle rustling. A brief encounter with Paladin results in a wounded shoulder for the bandit, instantly seeking sanctuary at the mission, which Father Bartolome is duty bound to grant. This allows Crown to deny the monks food and water unless they give up his quarry soon, but Paladin still intends to collect the coveted statue without further injury, and devises the perfect solution to a perplexing problem. John Carradine's versatility is a straightforward delight, Richard Boone at one point quoting the Bard in a nod to the actor's Shakespearean background, later to reunite with Simon Oakland in the TV movie sequel "The Night Strangler," and with Boone in John Wayne's "The Shootist."

A fairly average first season HGWT (but better than most other westerns), with a clever trick ending. As always, John Barrymore has great screen presence.

In this episode Paladin finds himself in the town of San Sebastian waiting for the stage coach (which never comes). He meets a rancher who is offering a reward for the capture of a local bandit. An encounter with a young boy leads Paladin to the mission of San Sebastian where John Barrymore plays the role of the priest. The mission is missing its statue which happens to be held by the aforementioned rancher.

Will Paladin triumph by virtue of his gun-play or will brains win the day?

The story starts out with Palladin trying to be nice to a really fat ugly kid named Pedro the Mission Boy, by giving him a donation for the Church Mission. Pedro follows Palladin around, and when Palladin goes to the restroom to wash his face, Pedro sneaks in and steals Palladin's money. Pedro was played by Bart Braverman, in his only appearance on Have Gun, Will Travel. Braverman has TV acting credits as recent as 2017.

Palladin tracks chubby Pedro to the Mission, where he finds Pedro giving all his stolen money to the parish priest, Father Bartolome, played by John Carradine. John Carradine, was one of those actors who had only one gear. He played himself in every role. Carradine does not try in any way to sound like a Hispanic priest. He just sits there and reads his lines.

The problem the Mission has is that when the U. S. Government forced the local rich rancher/bully, Ian Crown (played by Judson Pratt), to return the land and the buildings to the Catholic Church, the local bully kept the precious idol of San Sebastian. So the San Sebastian Church and Mission is missing the San Sebastian statue.

Crown won't return it unless he is paid $3,000.00. In the economy of the 1870s, $3000.00 is equal to $50,000.00. So Palladin volunteers to talk to Crown (Pratt), and to try to get the statue of San Sebastian back.

Having been to many Catholic Churches, and knowing what a church statue looks like, I fell out of my chair laughing when Palladin meets Ian Crown, and they discuss the Statue of San Sebastian, which is on his desk. The statue of San Sebastian is a cheap plaster statue that was probably bought at a plant nursery. It looked pretty beat up and chipped, and I wonder if the prop department found it in a garbage dump? Hardly anything worth fighting over.

Into the mix enters the great Simon Oakland, as Sancho, in his first and only appearance on Have Gun. Sancho blames Crown for a ranch accident that killed Sancho's brother. Now he wants to ruin the rich rancher. I am a big fan of Simon Oakland, especially as Tony Vencenzo in The Night Stalker TV series. Unfortunately, his part in this episode is pretty small, and he is not very convincing. Eventually Palladin brings his brand of Justice to San Sebastian, and the peace to the valley.

The actor who played in this episode was the great Hollywood character actor John Caradine, father of acting siblings David, Keith, and Robert, not John Barrymore, the patriarch of the famous acting Barrymore family.

The fact that they are both from the golden era of Hollywood and have families that followed in their footsteps, may make them easily confused by some people. They also share the same surname, and were sometimes prone to overact in an over-the-top old time Hollywood manner, but I think Caradine made it work and was much more understated than Barrymore.