Wichita Town

1959

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1
7.4| NA| en| More Info
Released: 30 September 1959 Ended
Producted By: Four Stars Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Wichita Town is a half-hour western television series starring Joel McCrea, Jody McCrea, Carlos Romero, and George Neise that aired on NBC from September 30, 1959, until April 6, 1960. Joel McCrea played Marshal Mike Dunbar, in charge of keeping the peace the booming cowtown of Wichita, Kansas. His deputies were Ben Matheson, played by McCrea's real life son, Jody, and Rico Rodriquez, portrayed by Carlos Romero. Making occasional appearances were the town doctor, Nat Wyndham, the blacksmith, Aeneas MacLinahan, and the bartender in the local saloon, Joe Kingston, played in six episodes by Robert Foulk. The model for shows such as these had already been laid out by other western programs such as Gunsmoke, Lawman, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, so Wichita Town may not have been unique in its plotting and structure. The two most unusual features about the series were the presence of Joel McCrea, a favorite of Western movie audiences for his performance in such films as Union Pacific, Buffalo Bill, and Ramrod, and the fact that his real life son was in Wichita Town, but did not play his son. Wichita Town was produced by Mirisch Company and Joel McCrea's Production company for Four Star Television and aired for a single season.

Genre

Western

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Director

Production Companies

Four Stars Productions

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Wichita Town Audience Reviews

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
bkoganbing I guess the grind of doing those B picture westerns was getting a bit much for Joel McCrea because a lot of what he was doing was winding up on the small screen in any event.So he decided he'd try television and what's more he'd bring his son Jody in on the deal. Jody would soon become a regular in those Beach Party films. Maybe for luck because he had already done a good western movie called Wichita back in 1955 McCrea called his series Wichita Town. He played the town marshal and Jody played his young deputy.Looking at the cast list you can see that Wichita Town was starting to build a cast of semi-regulars like Dodge City on Gunsmoke. Unfortunately the show was a bit too much like Gunsmoke and never broke out of the pack of a glut of westerns that were on TV at that time.Wichita Town only lasted a season, but Joel McCrea's next project would be Ride The High Country, one of the greatest westerns ever made.
dougbrode This short lived western, which appeared at a time when the airwaves were so glutted with cowboy shows that some had to fall through the cracks, has developed something of a cult reputation as being one of the really good ones that somehow got away. In truth, much of it was standard stuff, with the decent minded lawman (Joel McCrea) and his young deputy (Jody McCrea), pretty much the same formula as you could find over at ABC with Lawman (Wichita Town was on NBC). There was a nice feel for the cowtown, however, and several intriguing elements that are worth noting. For one thing, though the father and son team of the McCreas were featured, they didn't play father and son, though they were an older and younger man in a father-son style relationship. Second, though the characters' names were fictional, they were supposed to be Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. (Young Jody's character's name was even "Ben Masters," allowing for a hint at the historicity they had to suggest rather than admit owing to the fact that Hugh O'Brian and Alan Dinehart had already done the story of that friendship over at ABC on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. Perhaps that helps explain why Wichita Town never caught on - there was a sense of deja vu to it all, which doesn't mean that it wasn't good, only that it arrived a little late in the TV western game. Apparently, McCrea had wanted to play Earp on TV. One of his best B+ westerns of the mid-fifties was Wichita Town, in which he played Earp and Keith Larson (later in such TV westerns as Brave Eagle and Northwest Passage) was young Masterson. That film opened in theatres only months before the ABC Earp/Masterson series premiered. So McCrea backed off and then gave it a noble try with this one-season wonder. If hardly a classic of its type, this was a highly watchable variation on what then was an all too common theme, with McCrea bringing a certain substance to the role that most of the young cowboy stars then on the air couldn't come close to.