page_title: Black Saddle
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: Black Saddle / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Russell Johnson as Gib Scott from the television program Black Saddle.
context_page_description: Black Saddle is an American Western television series starring Peter Breck as that aired 44 episodes on NBC from January 10, 1959, to May 6, 1960. The half-hour program was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original backdoor pilot was an episode of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, with Chris Alcaide originally portraying the principal character, Clay Culhane.
context_section_description: Detailed in the second episode of season two (The Saddle), series star Peter Breck's character, Clay Culhane, is a gunfighter who becomes a lawyer after his two brothers are killed in a bushwhack. Clay is seriously injured, but survived thanks to a man who nursed him back to health, who he finds out was a judge who seems to have retired after sentencing one of his sons to death for murder. Under McKinney, Culhane decides that his life should take a different direction and studies the judge's law books and is further taught court procedure by the judge. A year later having been taught by the ex-judge, he passes a verbal exam and becomes a lawyer. His mentor is then killed by his other son who hates his father for sentencing his twin brother to death. 
  Breck starred along with Russell Johnson (several years before his role as "The Professor" on Gilligan's Island) and Anna-Lisa in the roles of US Marshal Gib Scott and Nora Travers respectively. Other recurring roles were filled by character actors J. Pat O'Malley in eight episodes as Judge Caleb Marsh and Walter Burke in five segments as Tim Potter.
  In the episode "Client Neal Adams" (May 9, 1959), James Drury (more than three years before the premiere of his own series The Virginian on NBC) guest stars as Neal Adams, an old friend of Culhane's who has robbed a bank of $8,000. Shot in the back by a pursuing bounty hunter, played by Charles Aidman, Adams asks Culhane for help. Adams claims that the bounty hunter is the brother of a man whom Adams had earlier killed in self-defence. From the start, Marshal Scott doubts Adams' story and questions Culhane's judgment in the matter.
  In "Client Peter Warren" (October 30, 1959), John Lupton, a year after the close of his Broken Arrow Western series, plays a man accused by townspeople of starting a fire that caused the death of his estranged wife's wealthy and respected aunt. The motive is inheritance of joint property from the aunt's pending estate. Culhane agrees to defend Warren but instead finds evidence that Warren had been present at the scene of the fire. Ed Nelson portrays Lee Coogan, a hot-headed man and a former suitor of Mrs. Warren, played by Aneta Corsaut. Coogan is also determined to show Warren's guilt.
  In "Apache Trail" (November 20, 1959), Culhane and Nora go to an Indian outpost to collect a debt owed to her. There they encounter Sam King (DeForest Kelley), accused of defrauding tribesmen. King is beaten with a whip but survives the ordeal, only to be shot and killed.
caption: Russell Johnson as Marshal Gib Scott
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