Re: RARA-AVIS: Hardboiled Westerns

From: james.doherty@gsa.gov
Date: 11 Jan 2000


In his post on Brian Garfield, Roy mentions that he "also had a short-lived series about a modern western sheriff who was always tracking people in the desert." If it's the series I'm thinking about, the character, Sam Watchman, wasn't a sheriff but an Arizona State Trooper. He was also a full-blooded Navajo which made the character an interesting comparison with Hillerman's tribal cops, Leaphorn and Chee.

The two books featuring Watchman are *Relentless*, about the tracking of a gang of bank robbers through a mountain blizzrd, and *The Threepersons Hunt*, about the tracking of an Inidan suspect in a murder whom Sam comes to believe might be innocent.

*Relentless* was made into a rather well-done TV-movie with an Indian actor named (if memory serves) Will Sampson as Watchman. This was the very first Hollywood production in which an Indian lead character was played by an Indian actor.

JIM DOHERTY

--
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Jan 2000 EST