page_title: Rawhide (TV series)
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: Rawhide (TV series) / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: Photo of John Ireland (left) as Jed Colby and Raymond St. Jacques as Simon Blake from the television program Rawhide. The characters and actors were new to the program.
context_page_description: Rawhide is an American Western TV series starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. The show aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959, to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965, until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes. The series was produced and sometimes directed by Charles Marquis Warren, who also produced early episodes of Gunsmoke.
  Spanning seven and a half years, Rawhide was the sixth-longest-running American television Western, exceeded only by eight years of Wagon Train, nine years of The Virginian, fourteen years of Bonanza, eighteen years of Death Valley Days, and twenty years of Gunsmoke.
context_section_description: Set in the 1860s, Rawhide portrays the challenges faced by the drovers of a cattle drive. Most episodes are introduced with a monologue by Gil Favor (portrayed by Eric Fleming), trail boss. In a typical Rawhide story, the drovers come upon people on the trail and involve themselves in other people's affairs, usually encountering various and sundry corrupt individuals. Many times, one or more of the crew venture into a nearby town and encounter some trouble from crooked townspeople or lawless politicians from which they need to be rescued. Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood) was young and at times impetuous in the earliest episodes, and Favor had to keep a tight rein on him. 
  Favor is a savvy and strong leader who always plays "square" with his fellow men – a tough customer who can handle the challenges and get the job done. (Producer Charles Warren called on the diary written in 1866 by trail boss George C. Duffield to shape the character of Favor.) Although Favor had the respect and loyalty of the men who worked for him, the people, including Yates, are insubordinate to him a few times, after working too hard or after receiving a tongue lashing. Favor has to fight at times and usually wins. 
  Some Rawhide stories were easy in production terms, but the peak form of the show was convincing and naturalistic, and sometimes brutal. Its story lines ranged from parched plains to anthrax, ghostly riders to wolves, cattle raiding, bandits, murderers, and others. A frequent story line was the constant need to find water for the cattle. The scout spent much of his time looking for water, sometimes finding that water holes and even rivers had dried up. In some ways, the show was similar to the TV series Wagon Train, which had debuted on NBC on September 18, 1957. For example, neither the wagon train nor the herd moved very much.
  Rawhide frequently dealt with controversial topics. Robert Culp played an ex-soldier on the drive who had become dangerously addicted to morphine. Mexican drover Jesús faced racism at times from outside of the crew. 
  Several shows deal with the aftermath of the American Civil War, which ended four years earlier. The "Poco Tiempo" episode reveals that Yates' father's name was Dan, that Yates' came from Southwestern Texas, that he joined the Confederate States Army at 16, and that he was later held in a federal prison camp. 
  Favor also served in the CSA as a captain. "Incident on the Edge of Madness" in season one, guest-starring Lon Chaney Jr., had Favor's old commanding officer attempting to enlist the aid of Favor and his men to start the "New Confederacy of Panama" much to Favor's dismay. In that same episode Favor and Nolan were revealed to have been in the Confederate forces up on Marye's Heights at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and they "felt shamed" at killing so many Union soldiers. Some American Indians demanded cattle as payment for going through their land. Rough characters were in the shows, and in one episode Gil Favor is tortured by having his face held near a fire. In "Incident of the Town in Terror," people think that a sick Yates has "the plague" (anthrax) and they enforce by gunpoint a quarantine of the cattle drovers outside the town. Also, cattle rustlers were around, including Commancheros. 
  On occasions, Rawhide was eerily atmospheric. "Incident with an Executioner" featured a mysterious dark rider (Dan Duryea) seen on the hillside following the herd, "Incident of the Haunted Hills" featured a sacred Indian burial ground, "Incident of the Druid Curse" and season two's "Incident of the Murder Steer" (where anyone sighting a rogue steer with "Murder" carved on its side soon after dies, based on an actual legend of the Old West). The series also featured episodes with ghost towns, cattle with horns lit up by St. Elmo's fire at dusk, cowboys struck by lightning, plus a strange totally enclosed gypsy wagon, apparently steering itself, repeatedly turning up, all stand out as curiously "spooky" tales for a bustling dusty cattle drive; the show's often stark incidental music suited these stories perfec
caption: John Ireland and Raymond St. Jacques, 1965
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