- THE WAR OF THE SILVER KINGS
Original Airdate: September 22, 1957
Synopsis. Soon after arriving in the mining community of Echo Springs, Maverick wins a high-stakes poker game with Phineas King, the unscrupulous town magnate. King doesn’t take kindly to losing—he has Maverick beaten up, and later tries to have him killed. Knowing that King is as much a cheater as he is a millionaire, Maverick is determined to beat him at his own game.
“The War of the Silver Kings” establishes the key elements of Maverick’s character. Twice, Bret beats Phineas King by sheer bluff—he stayed in the poker game, and later won the game, by betting with an envelope filled with clipped newspaper; then he snows King into settling with the miners even though Maverick knew that the court had reversed the decision upholding the apex law. Upon accepting defeat, King thinks back and then realizes exactly how Bret did it. “It was guts, nothing but guts,” he said, with clear respect for Maverick’s abilities.
Synopsis. In the town of Hallelujah, outlaw Cliff Sharp breaks into Bret’s hotel room and plants evidence linking Maverick to a $40,000 robbery-and-murder scheme. After the town convicts him on circumstantial evidence, Bret faces the gallows. When greedy Sheriff Tucker offers to fake the hanging if Bret leads him to the stolen money, Maverick goes along with the ruse but ditches the sheriff at the first opportunity. When Bret discovers that Molly Clifford, Sharp’s wife (played by Whitney Blake) arrives in Hallelujah, he trails her to New Mexico in the hopes of finding the money and clearing his name.
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Synopsis. Larry Kirkoff (played by James Woods) was indicted for the double murder of his parents. However, he was never convicted because the prosecution couldn’t place him at the scene of the crime, and the police never found the murder weapon. Larry hires Rockford to find evidence that would clear him of both crimes. Although Jim believes Kirkoff is guilty, he can’t quite resist the potential payoff: a $20,000 fee if he cracks the case. Rockford discovers that the Kirkoff murders may be linked to a real estate fraud. But he also finds that his investigation could have fatal ramifications after mobsters work him over and warn him to drop the case.
