Alias Smith & Jones: The Story of Two Pretty Good Bad Men

by Sandra K. Sagala

  GUEST CAST

  JOAN HACKETT — ALICE BANION

  J.D. CANNON — HARRY BRISCOE

  BILLY “GREEN” BUSH — CHARLIE O’ROURKE

  GUY RAYMOND — SHERIFF CARVER

  ERIK HOLLAND — KURT SCHMITT

  HANK UNDERWOOD — VIC

  STEVEN GRAVERS — PARSON

  GARY VAN ORMAN — CLYDE

  “The Legacy of Charlie O’Rourke” is one of the few episodes that did not begin as a story by Roy Huggins in his guise of John Thomas James. Huggins remembered, “It was very hard to come up with every story for that show. I was very pleased when I could find a story somewhere else or a writer would come in with a story.” [42] Huggins liked the idea brought in by Robert Guy Barrows, but had Dick Nelson write the teleplay. At the story conference held on February 9, 1971, Huggins told the story to Nelson, making minor changes to the opening, then noting “until the end of the picture there are no big changes — except to have some fun with the story. The girl can be amusing — she should be attractive. The audience should feel warmly toward her. The girl likes both of our boys.” Later in the conference, in the spirit of having fun with the story, they consider having Alice suggest the three of them move to Utah, but Heyes would point out that polygamy is “one guy with a lot of women — but not one woman with two guys.”

  In the original script, the detective is not Harry Briscoe of Bannerman Detectives, Inc. Instead he is Otis L. Johnson, a detective working for the Banker’s Express Company, which Charlie and his companions robbed. Otis L. Johnson lasted through three drafts before being turned into Harry Briscoe. Huggins and Swerling were particularly fond of Harry Briscoe and of J.D. Cannon, the actor who portrayed him. Whenever possible, they’d work the fumbling detective into a story.

  In this case, changing from the unknown Johnson to the known Briscoe caused some story problems. At the March 22, 1971, story conference, Huggins said, “We should pick up where we left off: Briscoe had bought their story — they’re Smith and Jones, who once knew Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry and gave him a helpful description…He’s never found out that description was wrong.” Later on, Briscoe goes looking for descriptions of Heyes and Curry at the sheriff’s office. Given the events of “Wrong Train to Brimstone,” this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Huggins recognized this and brought it up at the conference. “This would be unbelievable if one saw the two shows back-to-back. But it will be believable, separated by several months.” In 1971, before the advent of the consumer VCR, the writers could get away with this, but Huggins still wasn’t quite comfortable with it. On March 25, at the next story conference, he said, “It doesn’t work for us to hark back to the description the boys gave Briscoe, because then nothing that follows works. He can’t say he went over and checked those descriptions. We have to actually accept a hole — when the two shows are put together. Forget that Briscoe ever read a description of Heyes and Curry.”

  At first glance, Charlie’s legacy is the gold bars. More importantly, he left behind the love Heyes and Curry discovered for Alice, her newfound relationship with Kurt and Harry’s recognition that he’s not too good at being a bad guy. Charlie’s legacy will affect all of them for a long time to come.

  Devil’s Hole Gang. Courtesy of Ben Murphy

  Smith and Jones test the Brooker 404 for Miss Porter. Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  The Porterville Saloon shown in the pilot. Sagala/Bagwell collection

  Heyes and Curry with Miss Porter, played by Susan St. James. Courtesy of Ben Murphy

  Señor Armendariz’s villa as it now looks on Universal’s backlot. Sagala/Bagwell collection

  Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  The Gentlemen’s Jockey Club used in “The Great Shell Game.” Sagala/Bagwell collection

  Chapter 4

  Leading Model Lives of Temperance, Moderation, Tranquility…

  Though the last of the first season episodes, “The Legacy of Charlie O’Rourke,” wouldn’t air until April 22, 1971, the cast and crew were finished filming on April 5. They celebrated with a party in the saloon on the western set. There was reason to celebrate. ABC had renewed the show for another season, despite its finishing in the bottom third of the ratings. [1]

  It had been Frank Price’s job as an executive in charge of television at Universal to make the case to network officials to keep Alias Smith and Jones on the air. He emphasized its primary competition, comedian Flip Wilson, was “a phenomenon” and the show was doing as well as could be expected. He asked them for another time slot, believing that would improve its ratings. ABC turned a deaf ear and Alias Smith and Jones limped onto the ratings chart far behind Wilson. Then, after the show was pitted against All in the Family in the 1972-73 season, Price had to make the same argument. Even though his complaint about its scheduled slot was valid, network people were “getting suspicious” when Universal continually blamed the show’s poor ratings on the timeslot. [2] Sid Sheinberg, then the head of Universal’s television department, was concerned. Shortly after Roger Davis took over the role of Hannibal Heyes, he met Sheinberg in an elevator and asked him how he liked his new cowboy hat. Sheinberg observed, “[T]hat isn’t what you need. You need a new timeslot…It doesn’t matter, you could do the greatest stuff in the world, you could have the greatest goddam show, Roger. You’re dead. Unless we’re able to move that timeslot, your days are numbered.” [3] But when Wilson was pre-empted for a spring NCAA quarter-final basketball game and a large audience tuned in to Alias Smith and Jones, the show placed nineteenth in the Nielsens. That one break satisfied the network as to its continued viability.

  Everything was about pleasing the network. Their approval was required on all of the scripts that aired. ABC had a hand in determining who was hired or even consulted. In any given episode, network executives, “who made up in power what they lacked in salary,” [4] might object to the story, to any scene or to the overall content. They might have criticism for how the characters reacted and they reserved the power of creative judgment. This angered Roy Huggins who believed that network people thought concept was the most important part of a show “because they can take credit for cast and concept,” whereas he believed quality execution of the concept was the key. Huggins’s reaction to network interference has always been, “ ‘Hey, get lost…You have no credentials, you’re talking to someone who’s had very few failures on the air, and I don’t intend to listen to you.’ ” [5] Frank Price smiled while recollecting that Huggins “was brilliant [and] talented but not a diplomat when dealing with networks. Sometimes you just had to be more diplomatic because they could punish you finally by canceling the show…You’d better keep that balance of getting the show you want to do plus not offend people at the network.” And that’s where Price excelled. [6]

  ABC also pressed for star casting, that is, more recognizable names, but Price recalled, “we were always trying to do that anyway.” The network was paying a fixed license fee yet hoped the studio would go out and pay millions of dollars to get stars like Paul Newman. This would never happen because the budget of any one episode was only about $190,000. [7] Newman would not be asked to guest star, but Universal did manage to include many big name stars as guests on the program. Actors such as Walter Brennan, Ann Sothern, Jim Backus, Chill Wills, Slim Pickens, Rory Calhoun, and Joe Flynn were old hands in film and television and familiar to viewers.

  When Alias Smith and Jones premiered in January 1971, it aired on Thursdays in the 7:30-8:30 p.m. timeslot. The Prime Time Access Rule mandated by the Federal Communications Commission took effect in September 1971. After much discussion and dissension among the networks, the FCC eventually declared that Prime Time would be the three hours from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. Even though ABC would do nothing to alter the time slot for Alias Smith and Jones except to move it one half hour to eight o’clock, executives bought Price’s arguments for keeping the program on the air. Peter Duel explained it, “When you throw somebody to the wolves, and
they don’t get devoured, you keep them on. After all, it’s cheaper. You save money by not trying with a new baby.” [8]

  Just because it was the end of the season did not mean that work would cease. Having signed a contract with ABC for a full season’s offerings of more than twenty shows, behind-the-scenes people at Universal had much to do in order to be ready for season two in September. Throughout the summer, Huggins met with prospective directors, with promotion managers, and with Frank Price. For its part, over the summer ABC aired reruns and spent more money on publicity. Huggins was happy about that. His rule was “a show that succeeds in its first season will do even better in its second because it will pick up a new audience with the summer reruns.” [9]

  A month after first season wrap up, Edgar Penton of the Muskegon Chronicle interviewed Huggins about the show. He talked about Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry’s quest for amnesty. Because it was no easy task for them to stay out of trouble, “it gives us a gold mine of story ideas…Occasionally [it] puts them in the awkward position of having to thwart a heist they previously might have engineered.” The outlaws’ succinct line when asked what they do to make a living — “as little as possible” — was Huggins’s idea, knowing they weren’t “trained for anything honest. Even when they get jobs they like, they can’t keep them long because of pressure from bounty hunters. We aren’t even limited to the West. Our boys really drift around [and] get into situations which are inherently funny.” Unlike his previous creation, Maverick, in which Huggins tried to do something completely different with the western format and make his hero as unheroic as possible, in Alias Smith and Jones, “we did not aim for a spoof on the traditional Western [but] humor is a plus benefit in the show.” [10] The Los Angeles Times sent columnist Cecil Smith to Huggins a few weeks later. His report ran on July 4 and in it, in reply to Smith’s questioning, Huggins denied that the show was a spin-off of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Instead of evolving from the movie, Huggins felt it was more accurately based on his two other television creations, Maverick and The Fugitive. He also argued that its themes go way back to the Elizabethans and the Greeks. [11]

  For the second season, Huggins planned on introducing a recurring female character. Casting director Burt Metcalfe was involved with finding actresses whom Huggins would agree to for the role and he sent Huggins a memo of “name” and “non-name” actresses. Sally Field topped the list. Katherine Crawford, Joey Heatherton, and Bonnie Bedelia were included. However, when Huggins reviewed the names, he crossed off women who, in his opinion, were not “names” or who, for whatever reason, he did not want to hire. The problem, director Alex Singer believed, was in trying to cast attractive young women. The reason is simple: “the combination of good performance and good looks is uncommon. So, the likelihood of both of them being in the same person is statistically small. The tendency of the production company was to favor looks over performance on the theory that the story would carry itself and the women were decorative.” [12] Some ladies Huggins considered preferable to Field, who was eventually awarded the role, were Kim Darby, Tuesday Weld and Jackie Bisset. Among the “non-names” whom Metcalfe submitted were Brenda Scott, Joan VanArk, Linda Ronstadt and Shelley Fabares, many of whom eventually became “names.”

  Besides the scripts that would make it on the air next season, several other story lines were considered and abandoned. Titles included “The Wrecker,” “Nester’s Daughter” which Ben Murphy was to rewrite, “Standoff,” “The Slick New Bank,” “Girl of My Dreams,” “The Miracle at Montoya,” “Grubstake,” “Harry Straight,” “Young Man with a Dream” and “All That Glitters is Gold.” In some cases, Huggins had already told the story to the writer and a first draft had come in before the title was scrapped. This was all day-to-day work for Huggins. After many years spent producing his westerns Cheyenne and Maverick, he knew what needed to be done and how to do it.

  “I had a principle of how to do television,” he said. “And that is, if you’re lucky, what you like is going to appeal to a large number of people.” Huggins didn’t try to second-guess what any audience would like because he knew it was a losing game. Elaborate research tests and assessments of audience reaction were in place to gauge how viewers would react but most were fraught with error. “I gave all those up earlier and decided that I had to forget all that and hope that those things that I got a kick out of, that I enjoyed putting together and building, would have an audience.” [13]

  So, Huggins came up with stories appealing to him and assigned them to the screenwriters. Too often what they came back with was unsatisfactory. Huggins felt some young screenwriters thought as long as they knew the alphabet they could write a good show, but it wasn’t that simple. “It just seems to be so easy. ‘Anyone can do that.’ And they had no idea that doing that is calculating hundreds of possibilities and going with the one that works.” [14] Stephen Cannell, once a student of Huggins, now a television producer and author, learned from him that “a good screenplay is a series of the next-most-interesting-scene you can think of.” [15]

  Going with the circumstances that worked was a sign of Huggins’s genius. Another was his ability to pick and choose among personality traits so as to create likeable characters. Dennis Fimple, who acted in the recurring role of Kyle Murtry, said, “Smith and Jones, they’ve gotta be likeable ’cause [if] the character’s so thin that [with] one slip, you lose your audience…[well,] I think they both are really strong.” [16] Fans of the program suspected Heyes and Curry weren’t so much villainous as they were naughty. Huggins realized that’s how it seemed. “But it would be a mistake to think that that would be the intent. The way it came out was kind of forced by the machinations of plot.” However, some things happened that were “sheer accident. And as an editor, as a producer who really worked on editing, I loved that.”

  Roy Huggins’s goal was to make the best film possible. His theory was that in order to make the film better, he couldn’t go in to the editing room loving it, even if it was his script. Sitting in the projection room with Jo Swerling, the film editor, and other post-production crew, he watched the rough cut and “hated” it, looking for problems. Huggins would see a flaw and, ever the perfectionist, get irritated and order the projectionist to halt the film. Film editor Gloryette Clark recalls, “He expected his crew to always see what he saw and then to come up with ideas on how to fix it.” Sometimes he would turn to Swerling or the editor, sometimes he would just yell out to the room in general. “How are we going to fix that?” The response was often dead silence as his crew struggled to figure out what was wrong. A general suggestion such as “we can always loop it” was a safe way to fish for clues as to what he saw. That would get Huggins to talk, giving the crew a reference point, and then they would bounce ideas off each other. “Sometimes he came up with an ingenious solution and we wondered why we didn’t see it,” Clark marvels. “[We] didn’t have the same IQ, I guess.” [17] Huggins didn’t like to screen the answer prints, the final product that was delivered to the network for broadcast. He did, however, watch the show when it aired, and was known to call the editor and demand changes be made for the reruns.

  Occasionally throughout the run of the series, social themes such as capital punishment, bigotry, or the plight of Native Americans would crop up. When it was present, the appearance was never an accident. Huggins wanted it there. “But,” he said, “I also did not spend my time trying to do shows that had some social premise that would touch a current nerve. I didn’t work at that…I didn’t feel that was my purpose in life — to sound the socially important note every chance I got.” Instead his intent was to entertain as many people as he could. “And I think that show surprised everybody by having the kind of audience it had. It was popular. And the only reason it didn’t do even better is that it came at the absolute tail end of the western cycle. Westerns were dead on television. And there was Alias Smith and Jones saying, ‘Really?’ ” [18]

  As influential and competent as Huggins
was in creating and seeing each episode through, he couldn’t do it all alone. Jo Swerling, Jr. was his right hand man. Huggins even created a special title for him and to this day, Swerling is so proud of the designation he keeps a large gold ruler on his desk engraved with World’s First Associate Executive Producer — Jo Swerling, Jr — Alias Smith and Jones, a gift from his secretary.

  In the early months, Glen Larson and Swerling had alternated as producers on the show. Larson would produce scripts he had developed while Swerling produced scripts Huggins developed. Swerling distributed the week’s script to Universal’s production office and a unit manager would break it down and put it on a schedule board. It was then Swerling’s job to get started on the nuts and bolts of putting the production together.

  After he had done research on which director was available and who would be best for a particular script, he and Huggins collaborated on hiring him after which Swerling would turn it over to Universal’s Business Affairs department to finish the deal. When the director came in, Swerling sat down with him and answered any questions, then he and the director would cast the show. Though Huggins did not get involved in casting, Swerling would always consult with him about which actors they were considering and make recommendations. Huggins would either approve them or come up with other ideas, then Swerling had the final decision. Director Alex Singer worked with Swerling on eight episodes and found that he “was very good at settling problems and questions in all the details of filmmaking. Having a knowledgeable, shrewd producer who represents the executive producer as well as he represented Roy and who knows what your problems are is enormously valuable. Jo was very much that. It means you have a real support as opposed to somebody who is not knowledgeable or simply gets in the way, which also happens.” [19] Swerling acknowledged the compliment. “I wasn’t just in there to give directors trouble, you know, and say no to them. I wanted to give them the tools they needed to do the job, so if there was some way I could finagle it around so that I could say yes to them more than I said no to them, that was good. I tried to do that.” [20]