STEVE CANYON'S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL by Ray Bradbury

Have you ever spent years trying to get the opportunity to see a film, only to discover the film itself was a dud? Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I recently watched what was the Christmas episode of television’s Steve Canyon, scripted by the great Ray Bradbury, only to discover this adage rang true.  

Steve Canyon was Milton Caniff’s major success, following Terry and the Pirates, an adventure comic strip in serial format, which ran from 1947 to 1988. Steve Canyon was an easygoing adventurer with a soft heart. Originally a veteran running his own air-transport business, the character returned to the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and stayed in the military for the remainder of the strip’s run. In later years, Canyon was involved in Air Force intelligence and operations.

 

The comic strip was so successful that at one time producer David O. Selznick considered producing a series of Steve Canyon films, starring Guy Madison, but Madison’s agent talked Selznick out of it. (Madison would later go on to play the title role of Wild Bill Hickok for television.)

 

The strip would hit the silver screen through a half-hour television series on NBC from 1958 to 1959, and reruns on ABC in 1960. A total number of 34 episodes were produced, slightly on the cheap, but with the talent of actor Dean Fredericks, formerly known as the Hindu manservant of Johnny Weissmuller’s Jungle Jim series, the character of Steve Canyon was cemented as a no-nonsense troubleshooter for the U.S. Air Force. For the first half of the series, Steve Canyon traveled from base to base before becoming the commanding officer stationed at the strip's fictitious Big Thunder Air Force Base in California (a move solely to assist with the weekly budget for production). 

 

Many years ago, the entire series underwent a restoration project, ultimately released to DVD in three separate volumes. Of particular interest was the Christmas episode titled “The Gift,” which was written by Ray Bradbury. I bought the first volume, only to discover the episode I really wanted to see would be on the forthcoming second volume. A year later, the second volume was released, and then my schedule got busy. Eventually I was able to purchase all three volumes, the complete series – but it took me more than a decade to find time to watch the series.

 

Over the past two months, I would occasionally pop a DVD into the player and watch a couple episodes. The series is “average” at best, but typical of the 1950s television production. Just this week I treated myself to the episode I so longed to see… “The Gift.”

 

Regrettably, the Bradbury holiday offering was what science-fiction scribes refer to as a concept episode – the concept was the main fare. The rest was padding to get to the point. All of which is a long-winded way of saying the series is worth watching if you love the newspaper strip. But the one episode I longed to see for more than a decade turned out to be the worst Christmas film I have ever seen. It has been said by many that Bradbury could not write for television and based on what I saw of this episode, he was better suited to the printed page.

 

Oh well, at least my viewing pleasure (or displeasure) comes with a story.

THE "LOST" LONE RANGER CHRISTMAS SPECIAL (1938)

On the evening of December 26, 1938, the radio cast at station WXYZ played roles in not one, but two episodes off The Lone Ranger. Although the program premiered in 1933, it was not until February of 1938 that the radio program was recorded on a regular basis. For the holiday offering of 1938, it was decided not to record the episode because the series was then being syndicated across the country and it would have been weird to hear a Christmas episode in April, July or September. So the logical solution was to dramatize two different episodes on that evening. One as a traditional holiday adventure and the other as a normal western. 

For the West Coast broadcast and for the transcription, the script used for the broadcast of September 9, 1937. In that episode, Missouri Mike and his friend Steve Sanders are among the shrewdest outlaws The Lone Ranger and Tonto ever tried to track down. Wanted for murder, robbery and rustling, the only clue to their identity is a tattoo on the right forearm. The Lone Ranger and Tonto ride out to the ranch of Widow Spragg, 15 miles from Parkersville, unaware that the men they are trying to track down are trailing from behind. Hours after the masked man and Indian leave the ranch of Sam Spragg and his mother, the thieves break into the house and commit another robbery. Days later, finding no sign of Missouri Mike, The Lone Ranger and Tonto leave to hunt the outlaw in the open plains. Outside town, an Indian named White Fox participates in a race with Sam, with prize money for the winner, and then exchange death blows over money that was stolen by Missouri Mike who never left town. In desperation, The Lone Ranger talked with men from Parkersville, and the tribe of White Fox, to outline a plan for locating the outlaws. With Indians as expert trackers and vengeance in their hearts, The Lone Ranger has the advantage and together they hunt under the guide of moonlight. Finding the outlaws’ camp, they take Missouri Mike’s shirt off to verify the tattoo.  

For the East Coast and Mutual Broadcast System, a holiday adventure was dramatized. In that episode, poverty was common in the town where Bob Hamill lived, and little could be done about it, while Eric Flint thrived. The latter was rich, owned practically all of the town, and was hated and despised. When he learns a masked man is looking for him, he hires two bodyguards, Butch and Cooper, but a desperate clerk named Bob Hammil decides to rob him to buy Christmas presents for his son. Bob is going to lose his homestead to Flint, unable to pay the mortgage, so he figured what harm would it be to give his son a holiday to remember? Catching the outlaws in play for The Lone Ranger, Bob draws his gun and forces the men – including Eric Flint – into an old shack, tied and bound. The Lone Ranger, meanwhile, learns from Tonto about Eric Flint. There was a log of men here in the West who came to escape unhappiness in the East, the masked man rationalizes. Flint was one of them but his faith in his fellow-men was destroyed before he came here, did something to him. He lost his sense of values, his sense of fair play. The Lone Ranger breaks in to kidnap Flint, leaving Bob with the two gunmen. Throughout Christmas Eve, The Lone Ranger forced Flint to call on a few of his customers, people he loaned money to, and people who will not be able to pay off their debts. The first person they call on is Dan Dickerman.

 

RANGER: He’s not going to take your house. Those papers he signed with you were illegal. I want you to sign this paper telling just what sort of an agreement he made with you. 

 

JANE: Illegal?

 

RANGER: Then I want you to come with me to the sheriff’s office and lodge a complaint against him. He’s on his way to jail.

 

FLINT: No, no! Yuh can’t put me in jail. Them papers is legal!

 

RANGER: You be quiet! How about it, Dan?

 

DAN: But we can’t do it now…

 

RANGER: There’s no time like the present. The sooner he gets to jail, the better the community will be. We may have a long ride to the county seat in this kind of weather, and I’ve got to get him there before the first of the year if I’m going to save your property. All I need is one complaint against him.

 

DAN: Well, can’t you get somebody else?

 

RANGER: What for? He made an agreement with you, didn’t he?

 

DAN: But… well, I don’t know. Look, stranger, it’s Christmas Eve. I can’t send a man tuh jail on Christmas Eve.

 

RANGER: Not even Eric Flint?

 

JANE: He oughta be in jail… if he’s dishonest, Dan…

 

RANGER: It might save your house. Don’t you realize that?

 

DAN: I won’t do it. That’s all. Taint the spirit of the day. You get somebody else to send him to jail. If it was day after tomorrow or next day, any other day but Christmas…

 

RANGER: We’ll find someone else. Come on, Flint.

 

The Lone Ranger took Flint to another house, and then another, and each place Flint noted with increasing amazement, that the spirit of Christmas, the thought of peace on earth, and good will, so imbued  the men, that not one could be found who would agree to assume the responsibility for jailing a man on Christmas day. 

 

Eric’s backstory was not so cheerful. Eric Flint came out to the West 20 years ago, intending to send word to his wife when she could come out and join him after he got a foothold. He sent that word and waited, but she never answered his letter. When next he heard, he read her name in a paper ten years later, saying that she was on the stage. It soured him. He was mad. Mighty mad, to think she wouldn’t join him after all the promises he made. But he did not know his letter never was delivered. He did not know she waited years to hear from him. She did not know where to reach him. The Lone Ranger found the letter Eric Flint wrote. It never was delivered. He found it with a pack of other mail that had fallen into the hands of Indians when a stagecoach was wrecked. Then The Lone Ranger located her. She finally came out West in an effort to try and find him. She was singing on the stage to get the money for the trip. She was singing on the stage to get the money for the trip. She hunted years and finally settled down. The Lone Ranger knew of this and was determined to show Eric Flint that there were things far better than cheating customers out of their land. 

 

As the night wore on, Mary Hammil sat by the window where a small candle gleamed out into the night. She couldn’t sleep. She worried, worried about her husband, worried where he went, and remembering the expression of grim determination on his face when he left, was fearful of what might happen before he came back. But when Bob returned, he had a smile on his face. He told his wife all about Eric Flint being taken away and justice served against the vile banker. 

 

The next day, early Christmas morning, Eric Flint arrives at the Hammil homestead to surprise young Donny, Bob and Mary’s little boy, with a Christmas tree. Over the night, while everyone was sleeping, Butch and Cooper cut down Christmas trees and followed orders from Flint to deliver them to everyone’s house. Mary was shocked to discover the old Scrooge has a change of heart. He plans to visit everyone in town and deliver them a generous Christmas morning. Then he has to leave town. Mary asks for how long.

 

FLINT: How long? Sakes alive, I don’t know. I’m goin’ to meet my wife. I ain’t seen her in 20 years. She’s still waitin’ for me. I won’t be back next month. Mebbe not until spring. Mebbe I won’t come back! And who cares? A merry Christmas everybody!

 

Notes

While the Christmas adventure was never recorded, it should be noted that this script would later be recycled for the episode titled “The Christmas Tree,” broadcast of Christmas 25, 1950, with slight revisions. (For the 1938 rendition, the element involving Donny wanting a Christmas tree and the delivery of a huge tree on Christmas morning was borrowed from the broadcast of December 24, 1934.) A recording of the 1950 rendition does exist if you want to listen to it, now knowing the novelty of that episode is that Fran Striker was recycling a 1938 Christmas story that does not exist in recorded form.