Do you remember the time Hemingway and Faulkner teamed up to write a Western tv episode?

By N.S.

Back during the 1930s and ‘40s and beyond, book lovers were in agreement: To Have and Have Not was Hemingway’s (1899-1961) worst novel. And yet, studio moguls and producers were obsessively in love with it. They made no fewer than three feature-length pictures of it in English, and tv versions.

It had the stuff dreams were made of in America (not to be confused with “America”). A tough, proud, very masculine White man in desperate straits. And keep in mind that Hemingway on a bad day was much better than any writer on his best day today.

Howard Hawks made it, with a script from, of all people, William Faulkner, under its own name, in 1944. Michael Curtiz made it as The Breaking Point (1950), starring John Garfield. And Don Siegel made it in 1958, as Gun Runners, starring Audie Murphy.

There’s no one perfect version, but as David in TN will tell you, and I concur, the most brilliant performance as the protagonist was given by John Garfield.

On April 17, 1956, an episode of the immensely popular Western TV series, Cheyenne (starring the late Clint Howard), aired, “Fury at Rio Hondo,” with the following story line (two versions):

“Summaries

• “In a politically turbulent Mexico full of revolutionaries, Cheyenne encounters a sexy, blond pickpocket singer in Rio Hondo. She arrived on the stage with a local rancher who owes Cheyenne money from a cattle deal and he wants to be paid.”

• “Cheyenne is in Rio Hondo, Mexico. He owns a pair of wagons used to haul freight in the area although it is dangerous due to Mexican Revolutionaries fighting the Maximilian French. The stage arrives with a beautiful blonde, Mississippi, and a local hacienda owner, Bolados. Cheyenne follows them into the cantina. Boladas asks Mississippi to join him for dinner. After she leaves, Cheyenne confronts him. He owes Cheyenne for delivering breeding stock to his hacienda from the U.S. but skipped out on paying. He agrees to pay Cheyenne the next morning. That evening Cheyenne sees Mississippi take Bolados' wallet so he follows her upstairs. He learns Bolados had the money on him plus he is leaving the next morning. At the same time friends of the cantina owner Manuel plead with Cheyenne to help smuggle a man for them but he wants nothing to do with the local politics. Back in the cantina dining area Bolados is killed by a stray shot from the French trying to stop the revolutionaries before Cheyenne is paid. He is forced by the circumstances into helping the revolutionaries to get him and Mississippi out of Mexico.—Anonymous”

Hmm. Sounds familiar. An American living abroad getting cheated by a crook who gets killed before he can run out on him. Note that, according to imdb.com, Hemingway was “uncredited,” meaning the producer of Cheyenne ripped off America’s greatest story teller.

Only many years later, did someone at imdb.com set the story straight. That web site has deteriorated something awful over the past 24 or so years, but when it does something right, I’ve got to give the devil his due.