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Lucas McCain (Chuck
Connors) was a widowed rancher living outside of North Fork, New
Mexico and trying to raise his young son, Mark (Johnny Crawford).
Although how he had time to ranch is a mystery as he was always in
town confronting a desperado. According to network publicists, the
series was set in the 1880s. There are also numerous episodes where
the date is given in the 1880s. A wooden plaque next to the home
stated that it was rebuilt by Lucas McCain and his son Mark in August 1881.
Westerns were popular when
The Rifleman premiered, and producers struggled to find gimmicks to
distinguish one show from another. The Rifleman's gimmick was a
modified Winchester Model 1892 rifle with a trigger mechanism
allowing for rapid-fire shots. Despite the anachronism of a Model
1892 in the 1880s, Connors demonstrated its rapid-fire action during
the opening credits as McCain dispatched an unseen bad guy on North
Fork's main street. Although the rifle may have appeared in every
episode, it was not always fired, as some plots did not lend
themselves to violent solutions, e.g., a cruel teacher at Mark's
one-room school. There were several episodes where McCain dispatched
the bad guys without the use of the rifle at all and he once threw
the rifle to knock his opponent off his horse instead of killing him
because he was a friend. In one episode McCain even "spiked"
the barrel of his own gun when he knew it was going to fall into the
hands of the villain so that it would backfire. McCain was also well
versed in the use of a six gun although he did not own one and this
aspect was rarely shown.
The various episodes of The
Rifleman promote fair play toward one's opponents, neighborliness,
equal rights, and the need to use violence in a highly controlled
manner ("A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark," McCain
tells his son, "But that doesn't mean you go looking to run TO
one!"). In other words, the program's villains tend to be those
who cheat, who refuse to help people down on their luck, who hold
bigoted attitudes, and who see violence as a first resort rather than
the last option. Indeed, a curious aspect of the program is that when
they meet African-Americans, the people of North Fork are truly
color-blind. In "The Most Amazing Man", a black man (played
by Sammy Davis, Jr.) checks into the only hotel in town; for the
entire show, no one notices his race. Not only is this noteworthy for
the 1880s setting, it was radical for Hollywood of the early 1960s.
While the message was clear, it was neither heavy-handed nor
universal. A certain amount of xenophobia drifts around North Fork,
however, forcing McCain to defend the right of a Chinese immigrant to
open a laundry ("The Queue") and the right of an Argentine
family to buy a ranch ("The Gaucho"). This racial
liberalism does not extend to villains, however. The Mexicans in
"The Vaqueros" are portrayed as indolent, dangerous, and
speak in the caricatured way of most Mexican outlaws in Westerns of
the time.
Another fundamental value
of the series is that people deserve a second chance. Marshal Micah
Torrance is a recovering alcoholic. Similarly, McCain gives an ex-con
a job on his ranch ("The Jailbird"). Royal Dano appeared as
a former Confederate States of America soldier, given a job on the
McCain ranch, who encounters the Union soldier who had cost him his
arm in battle. The soldier, now a general, arranges for medical care
for the wounded former foe, quoting Abraham Lincoln's orders to
"Bind up the nation's wounds." (Dano also appeared as a
wealthy tanner who mistakenly believes Mark is his lost son and again
as a preacher with a haunting gunfighter past in an episode where
Warren Oates and L. Q. Jones, as unsavory brothers, try to goad him
into a gunfight and attempt to bushwhack him.)
The show was created and
initially developed by a young Sam Peckinpah, who would go on to
become the director of classic Western movies (The Wild Bunch, Ride
the High Country, etc.). Peckinpah, who wrote and directed many of
the best episodes from the first season, based many of the characters
and situations on real-life scenarios from his childhood growing up
on a ranch. The first season was the best. In retropsect this series
was somewhat darker than other Westerns. To lighten things up, in
1962 they brought Lou Mallory (Patricia Blair) on board as she worked
life's grey areas a bit. She was a love interest for McCain, who, not
to put too fine a point on it, needed a love life.
Peckinpah also used many
character actors such as Warren Oates and R.G. Armstrong (the
marshall in two early episodes who was killed by James Drury before
Paul Fix joined the cast) who would later feature prominently in his
films. His insistence on violent realism and complex
characterizations, as well as his refusal to sugarcoat the lessons he
felt that the Rifleman's son needed to learn about life, soon put him
at odds with the show's producers at Four Star. He left the show and
created another classic TV series, The Westerner, starring Brian
Keith, which was short-lived.
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