The Rebel (TV Series) Fair Game (1960) User Reviews

The Hateful Six before they Eight

[TheFearmakers · 8/10 · 2 December 2019]

It's usually fair game that homage-driven auteur Quentin Tarantino pays tribute to classics, especially Sergio Leone Westerns, but is TV's post Civil War THE REBEL episode FAIR GAME a complete rip-off or yet another example of the quirky cinematic preacher preaching the virtues of yesteryear for audiences of today?

Enter Quentin Tarantino's post Civil War THE HATEFUL EIGHT about a group of despicable types holed up in a way-station during a formidable snowstorm. Kurt Russell plays a bounty hunter, and his bounty is a grungy-gross female in Jennifer Jason Leigh's Daisy, who winds up doing exactly what a young, classy dame does in this REBEL episode.

The irony is that Patricia Medina's Cynthia Kenyon is so pretty and highbrow it's a shock she's facing the hangman at all... but not for long. Soon enough what ultimately happens to Kurt Russell (poisoned water to poisoned coffee) occurs rather quickly to James Chandler as a silently-stern bounty hunter named Farnum...

Perhaps the differences are almost as great as the similarities since not only are the handcuffed women polar opposites, but the endings are equally varied: Instead of the HATEFUL gang set up to protect the broad (including a bunch of dudes we don't yet see), in THE REBEL it's just one charming and handsome future VIRGINIAN cowboy James Drury who turns out being the...

Well this REBEL episode shouldn't be spoiled, like we just did its inferior imitator that, coincidentally, almost didn't get made when the script was famously leaked/spoiled during pre-production. But the original's twist is far more clever, effective and fulfilling than Quentin's epic that stretches a literally 24-minute story into a tedious three-hours...

What Tarantino deliberately left out was a hero, and THE REBEL was anything but your typical dashing lead or even anti-hero: As one of the Civil War's myriad of grey-clad losers, Nick Adams' Johnny Yuma traipses the Wild West as a logical, lawful yet sturdy-tough would-be author penning his own biography as he goes... as does Michael Madsen in HATEFUL EIGHT.

Overall the two-season REBEL is one of the better low-budget Westerns with creative camera angles that not only provide an intriguing maze to the story, but for the characters and their placement/motivation within what's usually a contained, strategic setting, often seeming more like a film...

Meanwhile, Irvin Kershner, who'd later lead many rebels in STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, directs more than half the episodes, including FAIR GAME, one of the best in a string of some pretty terrific yarns.

Patricia Medina and James Drury

[kevinolzak · 8/10 · 20 July 2016]

"Fair Game" generates a fair amount of suspense during the course of a typically fast moving half hour. Patricia Medina (later seen in "The Earl of Durango") guest stars as Cynthia Kenyon, convicted murderess, being taken to Laredo by bounty hunter Farnum (James Chandler, third of five). Stopping over at a weigh station with Johnny Yuma are two other passengers, liquor salesman Cramer (Stacy Harris) and well dressed Bert Pace (James Drury, later seen in "Vindication"), with Mike Masters (second of three) as the attendant. The after dinner conversation turns toward Farnum's profession, and how he can collect a bounty on such a beautiful woman, before one drink of water brings instant death. Yuma was warned not to drink by the dying Farnum, so he takes it upon himself to ferret out the culprit, waiting for the dawn that means Laredo for Cynthia.

Did "Fair Game" Inspire Quentin Tarantino???

[zardoz-13 · 8/10 · 11 January 2016]

This episode from the Nick Adams black & white western television series "The Rebel" reminded me a lot of the new Quentin Tarantino movie "The Hateful Eight." Mind you, this episode entitled "Fair Game" doesn't have the profanity, violence and racism of Tarantino's yarn, but the two share several basics. The action occurs at a stagecoach relay station where Johnny Yuma shows up after he loses his horse. He represents the former Confederacy in a positive light compared with Walton Goggins' renegade Southerner. When our humble hero arrives at the stagecoach station, he encounters a dude, Bert Pace (James Drury of "The Virginian"), who is waiting for the stage, too. The station attendant (Michael Masters of "Macho Callahan") informs them in no uncertain terms that everybody will have to spend the night because the terrain is too tough to negotiate after sundown. As the first part of the episode concludes, the stage arrives and the passengers disembark. One is a gent, Cramer (Stacy Harris of "Dragnet"), complains irritably about the dry dusty premises. The next is a bounty hunter named Farnum (James Chandler of "Sweet Bird of Youth")and he is followed by an elegant lady, Cynthia Kenyon (Patricia Medina of "The Foxes of Harrow"), who asks if Johnny will help her climb down from the stagecoach. Imagine Johnny's surprise when he spots the handcuff clapped around her wrists.

The bounty hunter in "Fair Game" has little in common with Kurt Russell's John Ruth. He will receive $500 dollars for Cynthia. She was convicted of murdering a gambler. Similarly, Cynthia is nothing like Jennifer Jason Leigh's Daisy Domergue. Farnum doesn't abuse her the same way that Ruth did Domergue. Eventually, Pace and Cramer reprimand Farnum for his profession, but Johnny defends him. Before long, the attendant brings in some fresh water, and Farnum quenches his thirst. As Johnny is about to scoop out a cup of refreshment, Farnum warns him not to and dies from poisoning. At this point, our hero must ferret out the skunk who contaminated their source of water.

The differences between "Fair Game" and "The Hateful Eight" are many and varied, but the similarities are pointed. The water is poisoned instead of the coffee. The setting is a stagecoach relay station. The man taking Cynthia in for the reward is a bounty hunter. Mind you, Cynthia doesn't have a gang of trigger-happy gunslingers determined to set her free. Indeed, she has more to worry about from her own kind than the law. There is no "Once Upon A Time in the West" massacre at the relay station. In fact, there isn't a single African-American in the entire cast!

Future "Empire Strikes Back" director Irvin Kershner helmed this episode and he maintains suspense throughout this taut 30-minute show.

Precursor to THE HATEFUL EIGHT

[BrianDanaCamp · 6 January 2016]

"Fair Game" (1960), a half-hour episode of the western series, "The Rebel," has enough elements in common with Quentin Tarantino's new film, THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015), to make me think that Tarantino must have seen this episode at some point in his long history of feverish viewing and filed it away to use as a jumping-off point for his three-hour western drama about a brewing conflict among eight motley characters who become stranded in a saloon during a blizzard and get mixed up in a welter of hidden agendas. "Fair Game" takes place at a stagecoach way station as a group of passengers headed for Laredo spend the night before a scheduled departure in the morning. One of the passengers is a bounty hunter and another is his prisoner, a beautiful woman in handcuffs named Cynthia Kenyon and played by Patricia Medina. Johnny Yuma (Nick Adams), the rebel of the title, has lost the use of his horse and is eager to get to Laredo for a job. Two stage employees are on hand as well as two other passengers, a gambler, played by James Drury (future star of "The Virginian"), and a drummer (salesman), played by Stacy Harris. When one of the group is poisoned after being first to drink from a bucket of water put out by the station master, suspicion falls on the others and Yuma takes charge to make sure there are no more misdeeds and find out who's at the bottom of it.

It's a tidy little tale of suspense and it takes one sixth of the time as Tarantino's film, which offers, of course, a much more intricate plot and a much greater degree of spectacle, violence and bloodshed. This episode was directed by Irvin Kershner, who made his name 20 years later with the second Star Wars film, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.