Arnold Laven - The Rifleman and Other Westerns

The Rifleman and Other Westerns

In 1957, Laven and his partners were collaborating with young screenwriter, Sam Peckinpah, on an episode of Zane Grey Theater when Laven came up with the concept for The Rifleman. Looking for a hook to separate the idea from other westerns, Laven suggested that they focus on the relationship between the rifle-toting settler and his son. Laven recalled that he was "inspired by his own relationship with his son, Larry, and told writer Sam Peckinpah to develop a father-son relationship." The Rifleman, with former professional baseball and basketball player Chuck Connors in the lead role, proved to be Laven's biggest success. The series ran from 1958 through 1963 and became one of the most successful television series of the 1960s.

With the success of The Rifleman, the Levy-Gardner-Laven team devoted much of their efforts in the 1960s to the western genre. During the 1959–1960 television season, they produced Law of the Plainsman, a western television series starring Michael Ansara as an Apache Indian who attends Harvard University and then returns west as a Deputy Marshal in New Mexico.

Laven developed a friendship with Rifleman star Chuck Connors. In 1962, Laven cast Connors in the title role of the biographical film, Geronimo, which Laven directed and produced.

After The Rifleman left the air, Laven returned to the western genre as the executive producer of the long-running western television series, The Big Valley. The series starred Barbara Stanwyck and was broadcast by ABC from 1965 to 1969. Laven was responsible for casting Lee Majors as Stanwyck's son, predicting big things for the young actor: "It's his first appearance before a camera and I'll go on record as saying he's one of the most attractive male stars to come along in years."

Laven's association with the genre extended into a string of feature films. His directing credits in the western genre included The Glory Guys, a 1965 feature written by Sam Peckinpah about George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry Regiment, and Rough Night in Jericho, a 1967 western film starring Dean Martin, George Peppard, and Jean Simmons.

In 1968, Laven became one of the first directors to be confronted with cutting a scene under the newly introduced MPAA ratings system. The film was Sam Whiskey, a western directed by Laven and starring Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson as characters trying to recover $250,000 in gold bars from a steamboat wreck. The film as submitted by Laven to the MPAA included "a bare-from-the-waist-up shot" of Angie Dickinson. When faced with the prospect of an "R" rating (at the time an entirely new concept), Laven substituted a tighter shot of Dickinson from the shoulders up to avoid the "R" rating.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Levy-Gardner-Laven team also remained active as producers on such films as Clambake, a 1967 Elvis Presley musical co-starring Shelley Fabares, The Scalphunters, an 1968 western directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Burt Lancaster, Ossie Davis and Telly Savalas, and Kansas City Bomber, a 1972 drama starring Raquel Welch as a roller derby athlete.