Temple Houston (TV series)
| Temple Houston | |
|---|---|
Jeffrey Hunter in Temple Houston (1963)
|
|
| Genre |
Western Legal drama Comedy |
| Directed by |
Leslie H. Martinson William Conrad Robert Totten Irving J. Moore Alvin Ganzer Robert D. Webb |
| Starring |
Jeffrey Hunter Jack Elam James Best Frank Ferguson Chubby Johnson Mary Wickes |
| Opening theme | "The Yellow Rose of Texas" as arranged by and Ned Washington |
| Country of origin |
 United States
|
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 26 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
William T. Orr Jack Webb Jeffrey Hunter |
| Producer(s) |
Richard M. Bluel Joseph Dackow Lawrence Dobkin Jimmy Lydon |
| Location(s) |
 California
|
| Editor(s) | Byron Chudnow |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Picture format | 1.33 : 1 monochrome |
| Audio format | monaural |
| First shown in | Thursdays at 7:30pm |
| Original release | 19 September 1963 – 2 April 1964 |
Temple Houston is a 1963–1964 NBC television series considered "the first attempt ... to produce an hour-long western series with the main character being an attorney in the formal sense."Temple Houston was the only program which Jack Webb sold to a network during his ten months as the head of production at Warner Bros. Television. It was also the lone series in which actor Jeffrey Hunter played a regular part. The series' supporting cast features Jack Elam and Chubby Johnson.
Temple Houston is based loosely on the career of the real-life circuit-riding lawyer Temple Lea Houston (1860–1905), son of the more famous Sam Houston. Little, however, binds all the episodes together under a common framework. The series variously cast the characters and situations in both an overtly humorous and a deadly serious light. Writer Francis M. Nevin asserts of the first episode entitled "The Twisted Rope": "Clearly, the concept here is Perry Mason out West", going so far as to note that Temple Houston's court opponent "apes Hamilton Burger by accusing Houston of 'prolonging this trial with a lot of dramatic nonsense'". Later episodes turned Houston into more of a detective than a lawyer. Over the course of the series, the bulk of the narrative sees Houston actually gathering evidence, rather than trying cases. In the end, the series largely eschewed criminal law in favor of overtly humorous plots, such as in the episode "The Law and Big Annie", in which Houston uses his legal expertise to help a friend decide what to do after he inherits an elephant.
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