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Western · CBS

Frontier Gentleman

January 29, 1958 – November 16, 1958 · 42 broadcasts

Frontier Gentleman was CBS radio's most literate answer to the adult-Western vogue of the late 1950s -- a single 1958 season, February through November, built entirely around one splendid conceit. J.B. Kendall is an Englishman, a correspondent for the Times of London, riding the post-Civil War frontier to file dispatches on "life and death in the West" -- and, being as handy with a Colt as with a pen, becoming part of the violence he came to describe. John Dehner plays him with icy elegance and dry wit, an outsider whose gentleman's manners keep colliding with Montana and Wyoming Territory. Created, produced, directed, and largely written by Antony Ellis, the show ranged freely across tone: gunfights and gallows one week, quiet character studies or outright comedy the next, with real figures -- Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Jesse James's gang, the gambler Belle Siddons -- woven through the fiction. Ellis surrounded Dehner with the deep Hollywood radio bench (Virginia Gregg, Jack Kruschen, Harry Bartell, Jeanette Nolan, Vic Perrin, Stacy Harris, Jack Moyles, Lawrence Dobkin, Joseph Kearns) and scored it with a rotating team of CBS composers, including a young Jerry Goldsmith, whose lonesome trumpet theme opened each episode. All 41 regular broadcasts (plus the Ben Wright audition) survive, and the series is remembered as one of the finest Westerns of radio's last golden years.

Collection status: 42 of 42 held (100% complete)
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Episode Spine

1958

January 29, 1958 The Remittance Man (Audition) Listen (MP3)
The surviving audition, with Ben Wright rather than John Dehner as Kendall: the same story later broadcast as "The Shelton Brothers," set in a Montana town where carrying a gun is against the law.
February 2, 1958 The Shelton Brothers Listen (MP3)
In South Sunday, Montana Territory, a sheriff and his deputy outlaw guns to keep the peace -- and to shelter the Shelton brothers, who are hiding from Billy the Kid.
February 9, 1958 Charlie Meeker Listen (MP3)
Hearing the Sioux are preparing for war, Kendall and Charlie Meeker hire a half-breed guide to arrange a meeting with Sitting Bull -- only to find the guide has his own price in mind.
February 16, 1958 The Honky-Tonkers Listen (MP3)
A saloon crowd lays bets on whether the wounded Wild Bill Bascom will live or die, and Kendall finds a man's life riding on the wager.
February 23, 1958 Kendall's Last Stand Listen (MP3)
Kendall joins Lieutenant Snow's troopers trying to relieve civilians pinned down at Castle Butte, and must find a way out of the canyon when the soldiers come under attack.
March 2, 1958 The Lost Mine Listen (MP3)
At the Fort Benton Dispatch, Kendall meets Shorthorn Tom, who swears he once struck it rich and needs a grubstake to find the mine again.
March 9, 1958 The Claim Jumpers Listen (MP3)
Young Bill Richman goes west chasing gold; when he finds it on the strength of three drifters' tall tales, they come to collect their share.
March 16, 1958 Big Sam for Governor Listen (MP3)
Big Sam Hobday runs Helena and now wants to run Montana Territory -- and he expects Kendall to write him into the governor's chair.
March 23, 1958 The Actress Listen (MP3)
English actress Eulalia Robinson's flirtations turn deadly in Virginia City, and the town hunts the man who shot her after she trifled with Kendall.
March 30, 1958 Gentle Virtue Listen (MP3)
In Deer Lodge, Kendall learns poker and wins more than chips; the sore loser Turkey Johnson means to take back his losses and then some. The lady of the story is a Chinese woman called Gentle Virtue.
April 6, 1958 The Powder River Kid Listen (MP3)
Sharing a wagon to Fort Benton, Kendall and old bull-whacker Scales pick up the dying outlaw Bill Logan -- the Powder River Kid -- who wants Kendall's help rather than the reward Scales is after.
April 13, 1958 The Trial Listen (MP3)
The whole of Fort Benton wants George McCune hanged for murder, until Kendall takes up his defense and begins taking the witnesses apart.
April 20, 1958 Aces and Eights Listen (MP3)
Playing cards in Deadwood with Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Colorado Charlie, Kendall witnesses how the aces-and-eights "Dead Man's Hand" got its name.
April 27, 1958 Random Notes Listen (MP3)
Between longer stories, Kendall files a set of shorter dispatches from his first three months out West -- a pistol duel between two women, a Chinese man and a worthless mine, a snake-oil peddler.
May 4, 1958 Daddy Buckbucks Listen (MP3)
Riding Buck Wharton's private train toward Laramie, Kendall foils a hold-up by Willie Ringo's gang -- and finds himself given a railroad by the richest man in the West.
May 11, 1958 The Cannibal Listen (MP3)
A rainstorm strands a stagecoach at Hyena Bob's way station near Chugwater, where a sick and dangerous passenger named Duncan Webster brings tragedy on them all.
May 18, 1958 Advice to the Lovelorn Listen (MP3)
Tom Hart returns to Cheyenne to marry, finds his girl gone off with a suspected killer, and Kendall works to keep him from taking his revenge with a gun.
May 25, 1958 The Cowboy Listen (MP3)
Riding toward Laramie, Kendall and a cowboy named Slim take out after the Arapaho who left a dying settler and carried off his wagon and his wife.
June 1, 1958 School Days Listen (MP3)
Two rival mining camps, Rotten Head Gulch and Goose Creek, nearly come to blows over a new schoolteacher, and Kendall tries to head off the bloodshed.
June 8, 1958 Beljoy's Prisoner Listen (MP3)
Sheriff Beljoy jails Kendall for a saloon robbery he didn't commit; as a prisoner, Kendall sets about teaching manners to the sheriff's daughter Mercyday. (Written by Charles B. Smith; Dehner also plays Granger Beljoy.)
June 15, 1958 The Well Listen (MP3)
Stopping at a homesteading family's cabin, Kendall is caught between them and the cattlemen bent on running them off -- until the couple's small daughter goes missing and everyone must join the search.
June 29, 1958 Gambling Lady Listen (MP3)
Rival gambling-parlor owners try to run Madame Verde out of Wyoming Territory, over the objections of Kendall, who has taken a fancy to the lady gambler.
July 6, 1958 The Education of Kid Yancey Listen (MP3)
Trail hands hit Cheyenne looking for fun, among them young Kid Yancey, whose keeper promised the boy's mother to steer him clear of whiskey and women.
July 13, 1958 Justice of the Peace Listen (MP3)
A mob lynches Jack Red Dog before his murder trial can begin, and a woman justice of the peace resolves to see the lynchers themselves brought to trial.
July 20, 1958 Mighty Mouse Listen (MP3)
After a stage hold-up, Kendall and others recognize the outlaws' voices in a Laramie saloon, but Sheriff Harper -- fearing for his reputation -- chooses to believe the robbers.
July 27, 1958 Mighty Tired Listen (MP3)
Kendall's second run-in with the Jesse James gang goes better than his first, as he and Thad Clark set out to recover what the outlaws stole aboard a Cheyenne-bound train.
August 3, 1958 Nebraska Jack Listen (MP3)
Waiting on a stage repair, Kendall hears the tall tale of Nebraska Jack -- a man who has done everything, including take five wives and father seventeen children, with one more on the way.
August 10, 1958 The Cat Man Listen (MP3)
Kendall rides to Deadwood with a wild Irishman hauling a wagonful of cats to sell, and mends a broken leg under the care of the future Mrs. Chain Kerrigan. (Written by Tom Hanley.)
August 17, 1958 The Wonder Boy Listen (MP3)
In Deadwood, Kendall meets young Dick Jackson, perhaps the fastest gun he has seen; when the boy's father is shot, Dick sets out for revenge.
August 24, 1958 Belle Siddons' Encore Listen (MP3)
Madame Verde -- Belle Siddons -- surfaces again in Deadwood with word of a gold shipment, and Boone May means to learn how much she knows about the gold and about Archie McLaughlin.
August 31, 1958 Belle Siddons Strikes Back Listen (MP3)
Kendall rides a stage carrying fifty thousand in gold with Boone May's men, while McLaughlin's gang lies in wait to rob it at Whoop-Up Canyon.
September 7, 1958 The Last of Belle Siddons Listen (MP3)
As Boone May moves to arrest McLaughlin, Belle Siddons hires men to see that he isn't caught -- and that Kendall isn't harmed.
September 14, 1958 A Horse for Kendall Listen (MP3)
Kendall buys a horse from Wohaw Simmons, who wagers it can outrun anything in Deadwood -- committing Kendall to ride it three hundred miles in the race.
September 21, 1958 Indian Lover Listen (MP3)
Sentenced to hang for killing Spotted Tail, Crow Dog will not say why he did it; Kendall is asked to help save the condemned man.
September 28, 1958 The Golddigger Listen (MP3)
Frank Twiss and Charley Longbaugh strike pure gold in the Black Hills, but Charley warns Frank away from Mary, a woman whose affections follow the money.
October 5, 1958 The Librarian Listen (MP3)
Kendall finds Almira Danworthy firing on a man who has seized her cabin, and has a week to help her turn out the squatter before she loses her land. (Written by Tom Hanley.)
October 12, 1958 Aces and Eights Listen (MP3)
A restaging of the Deadwood card-table story of how the "Dead Man's Hand" of aces and eights got its name.
October 19, 1958 The Preacher Listen (MP3)
Boyd Grier means to kill Thomas Yorby to avenge his sister; Kendall tries to stop him -- complicated by the fact that Yorby wants to die.
October 26, 1958 The Rainmaker Listen (MP3)
Rainmaker Darby Bullman takes a thousand dollars from the town of Osawatomie and enlists Kendall; the two have a day to make rain or face the wrath of the townsfolk.
November 2, 1958 Nasty People Listen (MP3)
His horse gone lame near Independence, Kendall takes shelter at the Grovers' remote store, where a stranger warns that those who enter are never seen again.
November 9, 1958 Holiday Listen (MP3)
In Batesville a whole town gathers to celebrate the coming death of the dying outlaw Cole Williams, and Kendall hears both a widow's account and Cole's own side.
November 16, 1958 Random Notes Listen (MP3)
The series finale: bound east to sail home to England, Kendall sets down a last round of random notes from his travels -- a train-bound reprise of his earlier dispatch.
The Story

Frontier Gentleman was CBS radio's most literate answer to the adult-Western vogue of the late 1950s -- a single 1958 season, February through November, built entirely around one splendid conceit. J.B. Kendall is an Englishman, a correspondent for the Times of London, riding the post-Civil War frontier to file dispatches on "life and death in the West" -- and, being as handy with a Colt as with a pen, becoming part of the violence he came to describe. John Dehner plays him with icy elegance and dry wit, an outsider whose gentleman's manners keep colliding with Montana and Wyoming Territory. Created, produced, directed, and largely written by Antony Ellis, the show ranged freely across tone: gunfights and gallows one week, quiet character studies or outright comedy the next, with real figures -- Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Jesse James's gang, the gambler Belle Siddons -- woven through the fiction. Ellis surrounded Dehner with the deep Hollywood radio bench (Virginia Gregg, Jack Kruschen, Harry Bartell, Jeanette Nolan, Vic Perrin, Stacy Harris, Jack Moyles, Lawrence Dobkin, Joseph Kearns) and scored it with a rotating team of CBS composers, including a young Jerry Goldsmith, whose lonesome trumpet theme opened each episode. All 41 regular broadcasts (plus the Ben Wright audition) survive, and the series is remembered as one of the finest Westerns of radio's last golden years.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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