Season 2 • Episode 24
LatestBlack Saddle is an American Western television series starring Peter Breck that aired 44 episodes on ABC from January 10, 1959 to May 6, 1960. The half-hour program was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original pilot was an episode of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, with Chris Alcaide portraying the principal character, Clay Culhane. For syndicated reruns, Black Saddle was combined with three other Western series from the same company, Law of the Plainsman starring Michael Ansara, Johnny Ringo starring Don Durant and Mark Goddard, and the critically acclaimed creation of Sam Peckinpah, The Westerner with Brian Keith, under the umbrella title, The Westerners, with new hosting sequences by Keenan Wynn.
Production
Four Star Television's slick half-hour factory at peak efficiency.
Acting
Peter Breck's smoldering restraint as reluctant hero Clay Culhane.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Peter Breck later played hotheaded Nick Barkley on The Big Valley, completing his journey from controlled gunfighter to explosive rancher.
Black Saddle arrived at the tail end of the 1950s Western boom, when networks aired over 30 Western series simultaneously — this was literally the last gasp before the genre collapsed.
US
