I’ve now quietly gone through all 20 episodes of THE DAKOTAS, which Larry Blamire so enthusiastically recommended in a special "Star Turn" guest blog awhile back. Now I can enthusiastically recommend it as well, though I must admit that it took me awhile - as much as six or seven episodes - to find my footing in this series. Now that I've seen them all, I find myself wondering if those early episodes might play better now that I’ve found the series' overall groove. As Larry noted, these stories tend to feel like they’re opening in progress. We’re not given our bearings or coordinates, we have to find them for ourselves. They also frequently take place in lawless towns or deadlocked situations where our out-of-town heroes are not welcome.
At some point, I found a metaphor that seemed to unlock everything for me: THE DAKOTAS is a war series in the guise of a western. Very often, it drops our heroes (or a portion of them) into the middle of a bad situation like so many paratroopers, leaving them to strategize a way out with minimal, if certain, losses. Sometimes the series toys with the question of the main characters' individual merits and values, introducing one or two who can't quite cope with the matters at hand alone, requiring either one or more of their associates to ride in and bail them out.
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| Jack Elam as Deputy J.D. Smith. |
Our heroes are an odd lot, too; they’re all laid back and laconic as if waiting for just the right thing to say - the right ironic, oblique, or inarguable thing. Jack Elam’s J.D. Smith (who has a criminal background) develops into one of his great characters, both wildcat and philosopher in wild striped pants; it's a rare opportunity to see him develop and ripen in character over a broad canvas of work. I also liked Michael Greene’s Vance Porter, the quietest one, who doesn’t even appear in every episode; tall and lanky, he largely proves himself through patience, action, and fleeting glimpses of word-weary humor in the trenches. Chad Everett’s Del Stark is the young one, always photogenic, bursting with talent and skill, and ripe for the lessons that reckless youths need to be taught.
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| Larry Ward as Marshall Frank Ragan. |
They are all the deputies of Marshall Frank Ragan, played by Larry Ward - who was the main obstacle to me accepting the series more warmly and readily, and always at similar odds with his own men, posing (even embodying) different moral problems that leave them wrestling with issues involving love, life, or just the correct thing to do when no solution seems correct. Ward is a terse, flinty personality; he talks in a ugly snarl, as though his jaws are wired together. He makes Jack Webb seem like a goodtime Charlie. He doesn’t have what you would call "range" as an actor, which makes him ideal casting for this part, which could not function as I presume was intended with a more personable actor. I began to understand Ragan and his purpose much later in the run; you need to forget other series leads that lean on charisma. Ragan is a Steve Ditko “Mr. A” sheriff - nothing more nor less than a stoic, immoveable embodiment of the Law. He’s not there to be anyone's friend, or to make right more attractive than wrong. He’s there to put a stop to evil at any cost, to protect the innocent - very often from their own pig-ignorance. He’s too busy ducking bullets and death threats to stop and explain everything he does; it’s their job (and ours) to pay attention, or pay the price. Each of the deputies seems to hold a different attitude in regard to him, and it’s not always tolerant or even obedient. The series is therefore also a chronicle of education; it’s the collective story of the deputies' educations in not only maintaining but understanding the law. That's just one reason why it's a shame that such an ambitious series was cut down after just 20 episodes, when it was finally cranking out some truly shattering hours. Fortunately, what little there is has all been preserved in this handsome Warner Archive DVD set.
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| Ed Nelson and Larry Ward in "A Walk Through the Badlands." Maybe Nelson's finest hour. |
Along the way, there are lots of familiar faces sure to please connoisseurs of this particular era of television, especially those of the western milieu: Dennis Hopper, Lee Van Cleef (young enough to be shot dead before he can get a second scene), Strother Martin, Elisha Cook (playing against type and doing it well), Whit Bissell, Robert J. Wilke (elsewhere else always an outlaw, here a Judge), Warren Stevens, Hayden Rourke, and Dennis Patrick - and some manage to give among their career-best performances by Ed Nelson, George Macready, and Telly Savalas (in what's left of his hair and a full beard) plays J.D.'s former mentor in crime, who tries to lure him back into the fold for one last big heist before he succumbs to a terminal illness.
Definitely one for further study.
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