Phonearl
Good start, but then it gets ruined
Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Dalbert Pringle
Actor David McLean was certainly no pretty-boy - And, he was almost pushing 40 when he took on the role of Tate, the handicapped gunslinger/bounty-hunter of the Old West.I found Tate to be one of the very few TV Westerns of its time that actually had a genuine gritty edge to the various tales that it told in the 13 episodes of its one and only season (1960).I think it was really too bad that Tate wasn't given a chance to at least run for a second season. This was a show that seemed to have a lot of potential. But, I guess that, at this point, the TV audience's interest in Westerns had waned considerably by the time 1960 had rolled around.Personally, I found a majority of the episodes of Tate to be very intense and quite riveting in the nature of their story-lines.And, of course, it was David McLean, as the title character, who was the driving force behind the gritty and keen realism of the show. McLean was certainly a man well-suited for his part.Tate, a veteran of the Civil War (where an injury rendered his left arm unusable), was a true loner and something of a drifter who, following the war, headed out on the road using his remarkable talents as an ace-gunfighter to earn a living and bring some semblance of justice to the Old West.Filmed in b&w, all of the 13 action-packed episodes of Tate had a running time of just 30 minutes.
aimless-46
This DVD contains all 13 episodes (all in B&W) of the western series "Tate" which ran as a summer replacement show on NBC in 1960. There was no pilot episode. The episode titles and their original air-dates are listed below. The ratings were not good enough to justify producing more episodes and bringing the series back in January 1961.A knock-off of the wire Paladin concept from "Have Gun Will Travel", the title character could be reached though a Kansas City post office box. Two rather weak gimmicks were used to distinguish it from other westerns; only the character's last name was used and he had only one useful arm. His other arm was badly injured in the Civil War and is shown sheathed in leather. Tate was a gunfighter played by David McLean (who was seen in commercials as The Marlboro Man and became an anti-smoking advocate before dying of lung cancer). Robert Redford made guest appearances in the "Comanche Scouts" and "The Bounty Hunter episodes, playing different characters.The Mary Hardin Story: 29 June 1960, Voices of the Town: 6 July 1960, A Lethal Pride: 20 July 1960, Tigrero: 3 August 1960, Comanche Scalps: 10 August 1960, Before Sunup: 17 August 1960,The Reckoning: 24 August 1960, The Gunfighters: 31 August 1960, Quiet After the Storm: 7 September 1960, The Return of Jessica Jackson: 14 September 1960.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
laroche-3
"Tate" was a half hour western series that ran on NBC during the summer of 1960 as a summer replacement series. Summer replacement series generally ran 13 weeks and if the ratings for these replacement shows were sufficiently good they were brought back in January which was the start of the "second season" to replace series that had been canceled due to poor ratings."Tate" starred David McLean as the title character, a one-armed western bounty hunter who had lost the use of his left arm due to a wound suffered during the civil war. Since westerns were beginning to hit the skids in popularity gimmicks were being employed to give a new western series a unique quality that others lacked. In "Tate", the gimmick was that Tate was essentially one-armed and his useless left arm was entirely encased in black leather with the black gloved left hand protruding from a black leather sling. This gave a very ominous appearance to other characters in the series and to the audience alike. Tate was very fast on the draw and could still handle himself well in fights despite his handicap. The series was very pleasing for the most part although not very distinguished from any other western series. The two things I remember most (apart from the black leather and sling) was that this western was shot on tape rather than film and that Robert Redford appeared in two of the 13 episodes early in his distinguished career.All-in-all not a bad series but far from great.
eric.anderson
Tate was a rather unique western series, unfortunately short-lived. Shown as "The Kraft Summer Theater Presentation of Tate", starring David McLean as (believe it or not) a one-armed bounty hunter!!!Tate was working as a bounty hunter to raise money so he could go back east to pay for surgery to restore his bad arm, rendered useless by a gunshot wound. A bounty hunter with morals and a mission, Poor Tate never got to go back east after all, he got cancelled. The series was unique (at that time) in being shot on tape, not film, with camera work in the "live" style of television. Overall, the impression was that the show was "live", but was somewhat "smeared" due to the taping process.
