User Reviews

"Alias Bart Maverick" brings Bart and Gentleman Jack Darby together, and they make a comical pair. When Bart sees Darby's name on a wanted poster, he starts thinking reward. Darby frames Bart instead and uses "Bart Maverick" as his new alias. Trailing Darby to Deadwood, Bart asks him how he goes through all this and stays so neat. Arlene Howell is Cindy Lou Brown, Darby's girl friend and a saloon singer. She was Miss USA for 1958. Bart resorts to the thousand dollar bill pinned inside his coat, and Cindy exclaims, "You carpetbagger!" before confiding in us. She grew up poor and came west to make money. She wants to return to Louisiana in a diamond tiara and silk dress. Richard Long is perfect in the role of Gentleman Jack Darby.

Bart keeps trying to catch up with Gentleman Jack Darby who's tricked him out of money, despite ornery Plummer boys, hostile Indians, and seductive Cindy.

First half is A-grade Maverick as Darby (Long) and Cindy (Howell) trick Bart into jail, while taking off with his money. This sequence is done with classic light touch and tongue-in- cheek humor. It's also a clever script with imaginative twists, unafraid to let the hero be outwitted—a real departure from other oaters of the time. The second half, however, succumbs to artless convention as Bart (& Cindy) ride across the Warner's backlot (clumsily blended with traveling stock shots), shooting it out with Indians and the Plummer boys (from behind fake boulders). Too bad about this, because the best Maverick was never about the outdoors, fistfights, or gunplay.

Richard Long is perfect as the smooth-talking, handsome Darby, along with Arlene Howell as the charming Southern-fried Cindy Lou (in the briefest of costumes!). Also, I. Stanford Jolley gets a rare break from mustachioed villainy as the rather humorous sheriff. All in all, it's a mostly delightful early episode of the ageless series.

(In passing— Richard Long as Darby and Efrem Zimbalist as Dandy Jim Buckley are perfect foils for the Maverick brothers. I'm guessing the two were added as semi-regulars once the producers recognized the series' light hearted potential. In fact, the two were so good, Warner's eventually put them in their own series-- Bourbon Street Beat and 77 Sunset Strip, respectively-- which was unfortunate for the Maverick program.)

Richard Long makes his first appearance in the Maverick series as Gentleman Jack Darby and it's quite the impression he makes stealing Bart Maverick's identity and then getting him arrested as Jack Darby.

Of course he's got good reason to do it. Seems like Long was quick with a derringer and outdrew Charlie Briggs who accused him of cheating at poker. But Briggs was the youngest of the Plummer brothers, a rather nasty ill tempered bunch with Richard Reeves the oldest meanest and nastiest of the lot.

Another addition of semi-regular characters that popped up on Maverick. Note that James Garner's Rockford Files also had a semi-regular cast as well.

Long's villainy always comes with a smile.