The Outcasts (TV series)
| The Outcasts | |
|---|---|
From left: Otis Young as Jemal David, and Don Murray as Earl Corey.
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| Genre | Western |
| Created by | Ben Brady Leon Tokatyan |
| Written by | Albert Aley Harold Jack Bloom Richard M. Bluel Ben Brady Gerry Day Anthony Lawrence Don Tait Leon Tokatyan |
| Directed by |
Robert Butler Marc Daniels Robert Sparr Paul Landres Joseph Lejtes Allen Reisner E.W. Swackhamer |
| Starring |
Don Murray Otis Young |
| Music by | Hugo Montenegro |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 26 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Hugh Benson |
| Producer(s) | Jon Epstein |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 48 mins. |
| Production company(s) | Screen Gems |
| Distributor |
Columbia TriStar Domestic Television (2001) Sony Pictures Television (2002-present) |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 23, 1968 – May 5, 1969 |
The Outcasts is an American Western genre television series, appearing on ABC in the 1968-69 season. The series stars Don Murray and Otis Young. It is most notable for being the first television Western with an African American co-star.
"Jemal David and Earl Corey. One black, one white; one ex-Union soldier, one ex-Confederate officer; one ex-slave, one ex-slave owner. Together, they are the Outcasts."
Those words opened a series telling the story of bounty hunter Earl Corey (Murray) who teams up with newly released slave Jemal David (Young) in the 1860s.
Several dynamics ran through the show. For one, the two heroes were not friends - Corey would frequently to call David "Boy" and David would call him "Boss". They were reluctant partners, both very fast and deadly with a gun, who were thrown together by circumstance when Corey walked into town carrying his saddle and needing a job, and David badly needing another gun to watch his back. Each had something the other wanted. And David was a realist, knowing there were places Corey could enter that he, a Black man, could not. There were times when Corey had to ponder whether to side with other Whites or back up his new partner. And David had to learn to trust a man who, a few years before, had held the whip hand - literally - and who once considered slaves as "inventory". But, as they moved through their new situation, a grudging respect came into being. It was not real friendship. "We ride together" Corey said, when asked. But there were hints along the way.
A rich - poor dichotomy was very subtle. Earl Corey had lived on a Virginia plantation, a rich man, who returned after the war to find his plantation untouched, everything just as he left it - but now in the hands of his pro-Union brother whom Corey, and other Southerners, considered a traitor. With the Union army and the carpetbaggers now in charge, Corey found himself with nothing. Jemal David, on the other hand, had been a slave who had never owned anything. Even his name was manufactured from a bottle of hair tonic. But he was now fairly prosperous, at least by his own standards. Earl tended to be tense in this "new" environment, but Jemal took things in stride, having come up, as he said: "a tough road... a long, hard road..." Both men lived only for today.
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Wikipedia