Never mind that he didn't reload and the mechanics of the weapon were implausible, the series worked. Even when grouped with the line up of special gimmicks westerns (the rapid fire Winchester of The Rifleman the weird Colt of The Rebel Wyatt Earp's Buntline Special), Randall and his hog leg stood out. He was the first anti-hero in a horse opera. For the mid 1950s McQueen's character was ground breaking. My picks for exceptions are, obviously, Gunsmoke, which stood above the others, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick and Josh Randall's Wanted Dead or Alive. With few exceptions they were all mostly repetitive and forgettable. However, I recently watched the series again on the Westerns Channel and offer these observations: When "Wanted" first came out in 1958, network TV was flooded with formulaic Warner Brothers westerns. I wish that westerns like that were made today. Wanted, Dead or Alive was most folks first exposure to a screen legend. As for his Josh Randall character, you can see a bit of him in all the people Steve McQueen brought to the screen like Virgil Hilts, Nevada Smith, all the way to his last two films, Tom Horn and Pappa Thorsen. But with McQueen you knew the weapon was on the side of law and order. Take note of the Dan Duryea western, The Bounty Killer, a very Freudian piece where Duryea becomes hated and feared as a bounty hunter until an innocent bystander gets shot with it. Of course the sawed off shotgun was also an evil weapon in the wrong hands. After that Caan's of considerable help to Wayne and Mitchum. Before going to El Dorado to aid Robert Mitchum, they stop off and see a gunsmith who fixes Caan up with a Josh Randall special. In John Wayne's classic western El Dorado, you remember that Duke discovers that James Caan can't hit the broad side of a mountain with a regular six shooter. His character Josh Randall needed an equalizer. McQueen was after some of the most dangerous fellows in the old west, plenty who could shoot a lot better than he. It lasted for three seasons before McQueen decided to devote full time to the big screen. It was a western calculated to exhibit the talent and charisma of its star, Steve McQueen. Wanted, Dead or Alive was a star vehicle in the truest sense of the term.
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