Frontier Gentleman

Western adventure/drama

Length: 30 minutes

Broadcast history: Feb. 2, 1958 - Nov. 16, 1958 CBS. Sundays at 2:30 PM through March. Then Sundays at 7:00 PM.

Cast:

John Dehner as J.B. Kendall

The opening signature of Frontier Gentleman defined it: Herewith, an Englishman's account of life and death in the West. As a reporter for the London Times, he writes his colorful and unusual accounts. But as a man with a gun, he lives and becomes a part of the violent years in the new territories. What the signature didn't say was that Frontier Gentleman was a solid cut above most westerns on radio or television in a western-filled decade.

It came in radio's final years, successfully combining wry insights, humor, suspense, and human interest. As J.B. Kendall roamed the West, his adventures came in all guises and forms. He met nameless drifters, outlaws, and real people from history. Writer-director Anthony Ellis asked his listeners to believe that one of the men in Wild Bill Hickok's last poker game was J.B. Kendall. Kendall met Calamity Jane, Jesse James, and the "richest man in the West." He won a slave girl, Gentle Virtue, in a card game and became friends with a gambling queen. He defended an unpopular man against a murder charge and almost accompanied George Armstrong Custer in a certain outing against the Sioux. He was usually strapped for cash: often he was found waiting for his remittance from the Times, which always seemed to be a town or territory behind him. He wandered by stage and riverboat, to outposts with names like Bear Claw and South Sunday, and one night on the wild Kansas prairie, he even had a brush with the supernatural.

The series was produced on tape, and the whole run is available in superb sound. A listener cannot help thinking, what talented people these were! An actress like Virginia Gregg could be a Chinese slave one week, a prim schoolmarm the next, a romantic lead the third. Jeanette Nolan had a range that amazed even her peers, but she was never better than in stories that called for a Calamity Jane-type battleaxe. Dehner himself was a versatile actor, at one point taking a second role, the wheezing sheriff of Shoshone. Jerry Goldsmith's lovely trumpet theme adds greatly to the lonely western ambience, but it was Anthony Ellis's show. A lovely piece of radio.

Source:

On the Air - John Dunning

(copied verbatim from the book because I was impressed with his obvious admiration for this show)