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(More customer reviews)Timeless Media Group has done Western lovers a huge favor by releasing episodes from some classic television Westerns that have been largely forgotten. They released collections for Cimmarron City (starring George Montgomery), The Tall Man (Barry Sullivan), Laredo (Neville Brand, Peter Brown, William Smith, Phillip Carey), Riverboat (Darren McGavin and Burt Reynolds), and the fantastic Restless Gun (John Payne).
But the other collection they have released would be even easier to overlook. A 13 episode series aired as a summer replacement with a possibilty to be a midseason replacement. Shot on tape instead of film. The star was famous as the Marlboro Man on TV commercials (and would eventually die of lung cancer). A gunfighter hero with only one arm. The series, called Tate, never caught on. And all we have to remember it by are these 13 episodes.
But what a great Western Tate was, and it is great to be able to enjoy the series almost fifty years later. David McLean played Tate, who fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War and lost the use of his left arm at Vicksburg. After the war, he covered the arm is black leather, put it in a sling, and went to work as a gunfighter for hire/bounty hunter. With only a Kansas City PO Box for an address, Tate rode all over the West, hoping to make enough money to afford surgery that a St Louis doctor said might help his arm.
McLean's Tate was very much like the typical genre-issue gunfighter, but in some ways he was very atypical. Like most, he was fast on the draw, hired out to good guys only, was nice to kids and women, and figured out a way to win every time. But unlike other gunfighters of the time, he could be crusty, harsh, and at times unpleasant - kind of precursor to the Man With No Name and other 60's-70s era gunfighters.
Tate would have made a great 60's Western. Too bad it never had the chance, but at least we have this collection to remember it.
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Tate is a unique western in many respects, although it aired as a summer replacement for only one season. One of the only westerns ever produced on video tape, not film, Tate stars David McLean (well known as The Marlboro Man in countless commercials) as Tate, a veteran of the Civil War who wanders the west looking for work as a bounty hunter and gun-for-hire, much like Paladin in Have Gun-Will Travel. Tate cut an imposing figure, his left arm covered in black leather from his finger tips to the elbow from a gunshot wound suffered in the War. This three DVD set contains all thirteen well-crafted episodes of Tate, with appearences by many outstanding guest stars, including Robert Redford, Warren Oates, James Coburn, Martin Landau, Royal Dano, Leonard Nimoy and one episode directed by the great actress Ida Lupino.
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