Alias Smith and Jones Trivia Facts

Alias Smith and Jones

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George Peppard was also in the running to replace actor Pete Duel before Roger Davis (II) was chosen. Davis was already acting as the narrator of the opening credits. When he was added to the cast, a different narrator, Ralph Storey, was brought in to do the opening credits.
When Pete Duel committed suicide, voice actor Paul Frees dubbed in his voice as Hannibal Heyes in some already completed outdoor scenes of the show where the video was filmed but the audio still had to be re-recorded in the studio.
Following co-star Pete Duel's sudden death on December 31, 1971, production on the series came to a halt for only half a day. Filming resumed on the afternoon of January 1, 1972 with Roger Davis re-filming Duel's scenes for the episode in production at the time of his death.
The tragic death of series star Pete Duel on December 31, 1971 was not acknowledged by ABC when the next episode aired as scheduled on Thursday January 6, 1972.
Roger Davis played a Smiling Gunman in season 2 and was killed by Kid Curry. Davis returned to the series to replace Pete Duel after Duel committed suicide.
This series often mixed fictional characters with real-life ones - even the two leads are that mixture. Jed "Kid" Curry was real, a fairly well-known outlaw who committed suicide when trapped (several episodes feature discussions between Curry and Hannibal Heyes on whether they will both stay straight, with Curry sure about Heyes and far from sure about himself).
Based on references to various historical events, our heroes spent seven years just looking for amnesty during the two-year run of the series, and were still looking for it when the show left the air.
This episode and "The Reformation of Harry Briscoe," which aired in the second season, were combined into a TV-Movie called "Alias Smith and Jones: The Gun and the Nun," which aired on CBS Late Night and may be available in syndication. New footage features Harry Briscoe narrating the two stories to his young son about a decade into the future.
Gene Roddenberry's story credit probably comes from his writing the episode of _"The Virginian" (1962)_ that this show is adapted from. Roy Huggins produced both shows and (especially during the first season of "ASJ" when the scripts were written in a frantic midseason rush) grabbed stories from his earlier series and handed them off to teleplay writers (he almost always heavily revised the draft scripts).
This is the only show where Heyes and Curry share exactly zero screen time together, although both interact with the female lead (Heyes is in about two-thirds of the show and then narrates a flashback to when Curry met the lady). The reason was that 'Pete Deuel' and Ben Murphy (I) were each busy on other series episodes where they mostly work separately from each other, and the filming schedule and script were altered so two different crews could film each of them completing a show for broadcast. (Except for "The Ten Days that Shook Kid Curry" in the third season, where Curry is kidnapped and Heyes must track him down, the two never spent significant time away from each other again.)
The original air date of April 15, 1971 is for the Eastern and Central time zones only. The show led into an NBA basketball playoff game, which ran long and pre-empted the show in the Mountain and Pacific time zones (where it was to run after the game). Viewers in that time zone saw this show on April 29.
This show took 11 days to film (as opposed to six for a one-hour episode), helping create a time squeeze which would haunt the series following Pete Duel's death. Part of the delay was due to extremely hot weather on location aggravating guest star Walter Brennan's emphysema.
Prior to assuming the role of Hanibal Heyes, Roger Davis (II) guest stared in this episode as the one man Kid Curry killed in a gunfight during the entire series.
Pete Duel watched this episode on his home TV after work, followed by a Lakers game, just a few hours before his suicide. His friend and sometime costar, Judy Carne (who wasn't with Duel that night) claimed in her autobiography that Duel was made despondent by the perceived low quality of the series in general and this episode in particular, causing him to commit suicide.
During the spring of 1972, a group of Mexican-American advocates began a protest against casting people who were not of Mexican ancestry as Mexicans. One of their targets was the Greek actor who plays Alcalde in this episode. When they learned the character would return in "The Clementine Ingredient" (episode 3.4), they insisted a Mexican-American take over the role. Producer Roy Huggins and Universal Television attempted to talk the advocates out of their uncompromising stance, then recast the role (paying the Greek actor a guest-star salary as a severance check).
Heyes has a mustache in the early scenes (as did Roger Davis (II) in real life). After Davis's first day of filming, Universal executives thought the mustache was "sinister" and asked Davis to shave it. Because the episode was more or less filmed in sequence, Davis simply shaved the mustache off on camera and the "sinister" line was added to the script to explain why.
This episode was the first of three to feature Georgette Sinclair. All three shows were filmed back-to-back-to-back as the last three productions of the 1971-72 season, but they were shown out of production order and an extra non-Georgette episode was tossed into the mix.
This was supposed to be Sally Field's return to the series as Clementine Hale, but Field wasn't available for the four weeks of filming and had to wait until the following season. The part was not rewritten in any way; the script typists simply changed her name.
This episode had the shortest "lead time" of any show in the series; filming wrapped a mere 15 days before the scheduled broadcast and 14 of those days were spent in editing, re-dubbing and other post-production chores.
Though shown out of order, this was the first complete episode Roger Davis (II) filmed.
This was the first Utah episode to be filmed, and the only stand-alone one. Filming stopped for a week after this was completed while director Alexander Singer assembled a huge script made up of portions of the other Utah stories, then shot the scenes for as many as four other episodes at each location.
Guest star Rod Cameron suffered from lung disease which was made worse by the Utah heat, and used a breathing apparatus between scenes. Ironically, almost the identical problem had plagued Walter Brennan a year earlier on "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry," a season opener filmed in the California desert.
This is the only show during the third season which does not end with our heroes riding across the desert. The show was already "in the can" by July 5, 1972, and producer Roy Huggins decided not to re-shoot the ending. According to a schedule provided by the authors of a book about the series, July 14 was designated as "horseback day," where the actors were taken to a dozen locations in The Arches National Park and filmed riding across plains, prairie and mountains for several minutes at a time, usually in long shot so the dialog could be added later. The four shows which use additional footage from "riding day" are "The Long Chase," "The MacCreedy Feud," "The Clementine Ingredient" and "Only Three to a Bed." The production staff waited a week after "High Lonseome Country" was finished until complete scripts for "The Long Chase" and "Only Three to a Bed," which were filmed simultaneously, and a part of "What Happened at the XST" could be delivered.
Interviewed thirty years after filming for a book on the series, actors Ben Murphy (I) and Roger Davis (II) and director Alexander Singer all said the temperature on location exceeded 120 degrees, especially when studio lights were brought in to light up a small gully where the boys spend much of the show arguing over who will draw the rifleman's fire. This sounds like a fish-that-got-away story because only the southwestern corner of Utah gets that hot, even in July, and this was filmed in the southeastern mountainous region.
This is the only show to directly lead into another show: during their weekly ride at show's end, the boys decide to go meet Clementine Hale (Sally Field), who will star in the following week's "The Clementine Ingredient."
This is the only ASJ episode where one episode leads directly into the one that follows. During the closing tag, when the boys are flush with Big Mac's payoff, they decide to revised Santa Marta, Mexico and hide out there for a year - but then they decide to go and pick up Clementine Hale to go with them. It can be argued that these episodes are actually two parts of a single episode, because in each case the ultimate object is to wrap up the stories of recurring characters. (The Devil's Hole Gang makes its last appearance here, along with Big Mac and Senor Arminderiz; Harry Briscoe had been fixed up in "The Long Chase"; the con men Soapy Sanders, Silky O'Sullivan and Diamond Jim Guffey were put to bed at the end of the previous season (along with Gerogette Sinclair, who is Clementine played by a different actress), and Clementine would depart after doing the next show. The only survivor would be Sheriff Lom Trevors, and he was given an expanded role and recast to work more closely with the boys in Wyoming.
Although this might have been a great Utah episode, apparently the script wasn't ready in time and the whole show (as well as those following, except for "Only Three to a Bed" and some of "What Happened at the XST?") were all shot back in California, presumably on ranches leased by movie studios. With less of a time squeeze than had been in previous seasons (due to several pre-emptions for "Kung Fu" specials), the show took a break in production after this episode was finished so the actors could promote the show on a tour.
"Alias Smith and Jones" often played fast and loose with historical dates, particularly during this final season. References in this episode date it as being set sometime in 1885, when the preceding episode took place in 1886-87.
A book on "Alias Smith and Jones" puts this show's filming schedule at an incredible 22 days - nearly four times as long as Universal normally allotted to a one-hour series episode. It appears that director Alexander Singer filmed this entirely on the sets of other episodes, getting two or three minutes worth of film in a couple hours per day, after the "main" episode had wrapped its day's work.
A second look at the production schedule shows that this show went into production two days after the season opener "The Long Chase," and filmed alongside it in Utah for eight days before coming back to Hollywood in late July 1972, where it was again filmed alongside "The Long Chase" for the studio scenes. This must have been rather interesting, since the shows had two different directors - did Jeffrey Hayden go to Utah with the "Only Three to a Bed" script with his hand and pick up whenever Alexander Singer finished his work on "The Long Chase," and repeat the procedure at the studio?

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