"Have Gun, Will Travel" was one of the most intelligent, well-written and enjoyable series to come out of the so-called golden age of television, but like Gunsmoke -- it's closest neighbor both in style and time slot -- the black-and-white series is seldom seen today. This welcomed box set, comprised of the 39 half-hour episodes from the show's first season (including several written by a pre-Star Trek Gene Roddenberry), stands as a testimony to the early days of the medium.

Premiering in 1957 and occupying the pre-Gunsmoke 9:30pm Saturday time slot for six years, Have Gun, Will Travel starred Richard Boone as "Paladin," who -- like his nickname suggests -- traveled the Old West as a knight errant, righting wrongs and correcting injustice for the price of $1,000 per. The origins of the character remained mysterious throughout the first season (until the season-ending episode "Genesis," that is), but he remains throughout the series an earlier incarnation of Ian Fleming's James Bond: a world-travelled, educated ladies'-man whose proficiency with a gun is no less impressive than his knowledge of art, science, history, and wine.

Based in the prestigious Hotel Carlton in San Francisco, Paladin would find potential employers in the stories in the newspaper; a telegram offering his services would follow, and if accepted, Paladin would be off to New Mexico, or the Sierras, or wherever a hero is needed: the original Man In Black.

Hugely entertaining, the series has lost none of its value in its transfer to DVD. Unlike studio-bound westerns like Gunsmoke and the like, Have Gun, Will Travel was one of the first series to film on location, often utilizing Hollywood "western town" sets and the always-popular Vasquez Rocks.

Film Synopsis:

"Have Gun, Will Travel" reads the card of a man…

Technical

Video:	Fullscreen 1.33:1
Audio:	ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles:	Spanish
Chapters:	39

The episodes, all in their original 1:33 fullscreen ratio, have never been seen in such good condition. The series was one of CBS' proudest early achievements, and great care has been taken in the preservation and presentation of the shows; each of the episodes in the box set look like they could have been filmed yesterday, albeit in black and white. The show was composed and filmed by veterans of the movies, and looks it: the contrast, lighting and composition are filmlike, and as presented on DVD have no dust marks, scratches or imperfections one usually associates with 50's television on disc.

Audio is unsurprisingly mono, but surprisingly clean and distinct.

Supplements

Each episode on the six-disc set contains a menu-selectable "Wire Paladin" section containing some trivia on that particular episode (generally 2-3 screens' worth), and a "Cast" section with filmographies and the like of the episode's guest star(s).