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Synopsis. Maverick becomes an accessory to robbery after a crook named Parker repays a debt to him with stolen money.
Gerald Mohr was the first of two actors to play Doc Holliday on Maverick (Peter Breck was the second). In addition to this episode, Mohr appeared as Holliday in “Seed of Deception.”
Synopsis. Bart suffers a broken leg when his horse throws him after it was
startled by a mountain lion. Bart rehabilitates at the Star Trail Ranch, where he finds himself entangled in a triangle with Pete Stillman, whom Bart has befriended, and Pete’s wife Kitty (played by Patricia Barry), who has fallen in love with Maverick.
The first act of “Prey of the Cat” takes place around Christmas time, as evidenced by the presence of a Christmas tree, as well as the playing of “Jingle Bells.” Also, Pete Stillman finds a wheelchair that he “gives” to the bedridden Bart as a Christmas present so that Maverick can take part in the lodge’s celebration.
LEARN MORE about this episode in the revised third edition of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES, featuring more than sixty new pages of never before published information about both the original Rockford Files and the CBS reunion movies, including twenty new interviews and six new appendices. 25 percent of the net proceeds from the sales of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES will be donated to The James Garner Animal Rescue Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds to help rescue organizations, shelters, individuals, fosters, and veterans with emergencies, evacuations, medical care, adoptions, training, pet supplies, shelter, rehabilitation, boarding, transportation, food, and other pressing needs. JGARF is one way for Garner fans to honor Jim’s memory and extend his legacy. Plus… if you order 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES directly from Black Pawn Press, you will receive an exclusive bonus gift. Go to Rockford45.com for more details
Synopsis. After bailing Bret out of jail (he was arrested for playing poker with the mayor—and winning), Texas rancher Kate Dawson sends Maverick after her brother Mark, a lightweight gambler who is squandering away his fortune in Saratoga. Maverick finds Mark moments after he loses his share of the Queen’s Ranch, the family spread, to a card cheat named Flannery. With the aid of Bart and an old card shark named Kronkhite, Bret reels Flannery into a bogus investment deal involving a luxurious resort built on worthless swampland. The con works perfectly—until Kate shows up and blows their cover.
In “Trail West to Fury,” we learned that the Mavericks cannot return to their native Texas until they were cleared of the murder of Jesse Hayden. Apparently, that matter was quietly resolved, because Bret sets foot in Texas at the outset of “Maverick Springs” and is in no apparent danger.
LEARN MORE about this episode in the revised third edition of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES, featuring more than sixty new pages of never before published information about both the original Rockford Files and the CBS reunion movies, including twenty new interviews and six new appendices. 25 percent of the net proceeds from the sales of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES will be donated to The James Garner Animal Rescue Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds to help rescue organizations, shelters, individuals, fosters, and veterans with emergencies, evacuations, medical care, adoptions, training, pet supplies, shelter, rehabilitation, boarding, transportation, food, and other pressing needs. JGARF is one way for Garner fans to honor Jim’s memory and extend his legacy. Plus… if you order 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES directly from Black Pawn Press, you will receive an exclusive bonus gift. Go to Rockford45.com for more details
LEARN MORE about this episode in the revised third edition of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES, featuring more than sixty new pages of never before published information about both the original Rockford Files and the CBS reunion movies, including twenty new interviews and six new appendices. 25 percent of the net proceeds from the sales of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES will be donated to The James Garner Animal Rescue Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds to help rescue organizations, shelters, individuals, fosters, and veterans with emergencies, evacuations, medical care, adoptions, training, pet supplies, shelter, rehabilitation, boarding, transportation, food, and other pressing needs. JGARF is one way for Garner fans to honor Jim’s memory and extend his legacy. Plus… if you order 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES directly from Black Pawn Press, you will receive an exclusive bonus gift. Go to Rockford45.com for more details
Synopsis. Nell’s uncle faces the gallows after he accidentally spooks the horse of a hanging judge.
Synopsis. In Virginia City, Beau crashes a party thrown by Kiz Bouchet (played by Kathleen Crowley), an eccentric socialite with a penchant for smoking cigars, playing poker, and fighting fires. Believing that her life is in danger, and recognizing Beau as a fellow free spirit, Kiz hires Maverick to protect her.
As a gag, director Robert Douglas asked guest star Kathleen Crowley to wear the jet black wig she needed for “Kiz” when she first reported to the set. The stunt worked. Crowley, who was certainly no stranger around the Warner Bros. lot (she appeared frequently on many of the series that were filmed there at the time, including Maverick), made such a convincing brunette that everyone on the set wondered who “the new actress” was. We’ll see Crowley again in “Dade City Dodge,” “The Troubled Heir,” and the final episode of the series, “One of Our Trains is Missing.”
In the summer of 1975, production began on Switch (CBS, 1975-1978), a caper series, starring Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert, that was produced by Glen Larson. Hoping to emulate the blend of action and humor that made The Rockford Files into a big hit, Larson asked Rockford co-creators and fellow Universal contract producers Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell to provide him with a few scripts that could help him incorporate elements of the Rockford style into episodes of Switch. One of the scripts that Huggins and Cannell provided Larson was “This Case is Closed,” a ninety-minute episode of Rockford, co-written by Huggins and Cannell, that originally aired in October 1974.
On Dec. 2, 1975, CBS aired “Death by Resurrection,” an episode of Switch that was strikingly similar to “This Case is Closed” in plot, style, and manner—including the use of flashback techniques to tell part of the story. Even some of the dialogue was the same in both episodes. Larson, however, took sole writing credit for “Death by Resurrection,” without acknowledging that he had actually based that episode on “This Case is Closed.”
The morning after “Death by Resurrection” aired, Huggins and Cannell fired off a memo to Universal Television executive Frank Price that detailed the extent to which Larson had appropriated elements of their Rockford script without attribution. This set the stage for one of the most colorful episodes in Rockford Files history—one that ended with James Garner, quite literally, taking matters into his own hands.
LEARN MORE about this episode in the revised third edition of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES, featuring more than sixty new pages of never before published information about both the original Rockford Files and the CBS reunion movies, including twenty new interviews and six new appendices. 25 percent of the net proceeds from the sales of 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES will be donated to The James Garner Animal Rescue Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising funds to help rescue organizations, shelters, individuals, fosters, and veterans with emergencies, evacuations, medical care, adoptions, training, pet supplies, shelter, rehabilitation, boarding, transportation, food, and other pressing needs. JGARF is one way for Garner fans to honor Jim’s memory and extend his legacy. Plus… if you order 45 YEARS OF THE ROCKFORD FILES directly from Black Pawn Press, you will receive an exclusive bonus gift. Go to Rockford45.com for more details
Synopsis. Bret Maverick rides into Sweetwater, a town in the Arizona territory, to play in a high-stakes poker game with Doc Holliday, Ramsey Bass, Joe Dakota, Lyman Nickerson, the Delta Fox, and Mandy Packard. After winning the $100,000 jackpot and ownership of Mandy’s saloon, the Red Ox, Maverick purchases a 100-acre ranch, which he christens The Lazy Ace. However, Bret doesn’t realize that he also inherited liability toward a $50,000 loan that Mandy took out from the bank against the saloon’s mortgage. To make matters worse, the bank is robbed shortly after Bret deposits his money.
An injury to James Garner shut down production of this episode for three days. Keep an eye out for the sequence where Bret’s horse goes ballistic after hearing gunshots. Garner was on a mechanical horse to film part of that sequence; he was thrown from the horse, and suffered nine broken ribs as a result.