Have Gun - Will Travel (TV Series) No Visitors (1957) User Reviews

Typhoid? Maybe Not.

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 25 April 2016]

HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL "No Visitors" 1957

HAVE GUN – WILL TRAVEL was a Western series that ran on television between 1957 and 1963. The series was very popular and was always in the top ten of the television ratings. The series ran for a total of 225 episodes. Richard Boone headlines as "Paladin", a gun for hire, if the cause is right. Working out of San Francisco, Boone places ads in newspapers offering his services. $1,000 and he is your man. While handy with a gun or fists, he tries to settle the problem without violence. (Not very successfully as a general rule)

In this episode, the 12th the series, Boone comes across a lone wagon sitting in the middle of nowhere. He has a look and finds a woman and a baby. The woman, Ruth Storey, explains to Boone that she had been cut loose from a wagon train. The wagon master said that her sick child had typhoid and would infect the rest of the wagon train.

Boone rides into the nearest town to find a doctor. What he finds is the very man, Grant Withers, who had let Storey and her child to die. The man is a fire and brimstone sort who claims it was God's will. Boone asks about the doctor who turns out to be a woman. The doc, June Lockhart, rides out with Boone to administer to Storey and the baby. The townsfolk, led by Withers, tell Boone and Lockhart not to return.

After they reach the woman and child, Boone hooks up his horse to the wagon and starts back to town. Lockhart is not sure if the baby has typhoid but needs some of the medicine at her office. Withers and the mob appear with guns and threaten Boone and the doc. Boone ignores the rabble and pushes them aside.

The mob follows and burns the wagon up after the Boone and company have reached the office. Turns out the child did not have typhoid but a case of 3 day measles. We also learn that the real reason the woman and child had been cut loose, was Storey turning down Withers romantic advances.

Needless to say that Withers does not stop at burning the wagon. He comes to do the same to Lockhart's home and office. The old lead cure is applied to Withers in a most unhealthy dosage.

Decent little story.

Have Doctor, Will Heal

[zsenorsock · 6/10 · 30 March 2007]

While riding across the country, Paladin comes across a wagon in the middle of a field, seemingly abandoned. He discovers there is a woman and her baby with the wagon. They've been abandoned by a religious zealot wagon master named Jerimiah Mulrooney (Grant Withers) who believes the baby has typhoid and will infect everyone on the wagon train, so he leaves them there to die. Paladin goes to get help and for the first time encounters smart, pretty Dr. Phyllis Thackeray (June Lockhart, in her absolute prime!).

This could have been a pretty good episode with Paladin standing up to a whole town scared of getting typhoid, but it was ruined for me by the over the top characterization of Mulrooney by Withers. Part of the problem is with the writing, but a lot of it is with his acting. As a religious leader, Mulrooney needs to display a little charisma and likability that on some level get people to follow him. Instead, he's just wild eyed and annoying. You can't imagine ANYBODY following him other than people who are just as crazy.

The chemistry between Lockhart and Boone is obvious and in a surprise, paladin asks Thackeray to come back with him to San Francisco. Instead, she comes up with a reason for him to stay with her, at least for a little while.

Lockhart returned later in the season in "The Return of Dr. Thackeray", but to my knowledge didn't come back after that. Too bad. They were good together!

A Moral Dilemma

[dougdoepke · 8 March 2011]

A prairie town refuses to allow an abandoned mother and child suspected of having typhoid to enter for medical treatment. Paladin seeks to somehow overcome their resistance.

The moral dilemma here is a sticky one. The town's people are acting on a utilitarian version of right and wrong—better to lose two people than twenty. On the other hand, Paladin's acting on an egalitarian version—treat everyone equally in a moral situation—so don't sacrifice the mother and child. Of course, the situation is complicated by the absence of a definite diagnosis. Nonetheless, it's the clash between the two theories of right and wrong that drives the plot, despite the obvious bad guy (Mulrooney) coming down on the utilitarian side.

The episode is helped by the desolate prairie location that lends a strongly realistic setting to the drama. However, reviewer zsenorsock is correct—actor Withers fails to provide the religious huckster Mulrooney with the kind of charisma that's needed, robbing Paladin of the strong adversary the drama needs. Note too the feminist message is laid on none too subtly through June Lockhart's Dr. Thackery. It seems the entry packs perhaps too much into the brief 30-minute time frame. Still, viewers can wonder what they would do in Paladin's place.

Typhoid? Cholera? Death on a dark horse? No, it's Paladin!

[lexyladyjax · 17 October 2011]

Typhoid isn't spread from person-to-person, it spreads via contaminated water from infected stools and bad septic fields. All the fears of the people in the town were completely unfounded. This discovery was made in 1854 by John Snow, but it took 30 years to be accepted and another 50-75 years for public health developments to solve the problem of clean drinking water and sewage treatment facilities. Of course this doesn't apply to Third World countries where cholera still exists and kills. Rehydration therapy solves most of the problems that come with typhoid and cholera these days.

Other reviewers have complained that Grant Withers as Mulrooney failed to provide the required menace in his part. This writer recalls clearly the demonisation of people suffering from such recent plagues as HIV and AIDS who were homosexual were considered to deserve their dreadful fate. How does Mulrooney differ from them? Withers showed quite enough menace in his role as a demagogue.

Today's headlines are full of foolish rhetoric from those who fail to keep church and state separate. Combining the two are always a bad idea. Here's why: if the two are combined, which version of church are we going to use, yours or mine? I'll fight to the death to keep the church I grew up in out of politics and the state. Possibly you feel a similar way about some other arm of organised religion. Isn't it better to keep politics and religion separated for those precise reasons? It seems clear that Mr Mulrooney had an agenda: he wanted Clara Benson for his wife. When she refused and her baby fell ill, that was enough to drive her from the wagon train society and abandon her two day's ride from the nearest settlement. That was a fate worse than death. Had not Paladin ventured by Mrs Benson and her child would have perished for sure, from lack of water if nothing else.

Richard Boone as Paladin flexes his massive acting muscles against the wrong-headed townsfolk, forcing them to see how wrong they are in their actions. One of them saves Paladin's life.

Paladin falls to a microorganism in the end, poor sod. Of course, he considers himself fortunate.

Paladin's Horse: Bay with front white stockings and a white face stripe. From now on this horse will be referred to as Einstein for reasons which will later become clear.

Paladin's Gear: Black concha hat, black Western shirt open at the neck, black trousers, black holster with Colt. The spurs are back in this episode.

Paladin Shoots: Mulrooney, who was going to shoot Paladin in the back Deaths: 1, Mulrooney Paladin's Total Kills: Manfred Holt, Jailbreak Team 3, Miguel Rojas, Strome's lackey, Mulrooney Total Kills: 7