The Rebel
Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma
Created by	Andrew J. Fenady Nick Adams
Starring	Nick Adams
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	76
Production
Production locations	Paramount Pictures Studios Hollywood, California
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	Celestial Productions Fen-Ker-Ada Productions Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	October 4, 1959 (1959-10-04) – June 18, 1961 (1961-06-18)

The Rebel is a 76-episode American Western television series starring Nick Adams that ran on the ABC network from 1959 to 1961. The Rebel was one of the few Goodson-Todman Productions outside of their game-show ventures.

Synopsis

The series portrays the adventures of young Confederate army veteran Johnny Yuma, an aspiring writer, played by Nick Adams. Haunted by his memories of the American Civil War, Yuma, in search of inner peace, roams the American West, specifically the Texas Hill Country and South Plains. He keeps a journal of his adventures and fights injustice where he finds it with a revolver and his dead father's sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun.^[1]

Cast

Episodes

Series highlights

Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma

John Dehner and Nick Adams

The first episode, "Johnny Yuma", is set in early 1867. It shows Johnny Yuma returning to his hometown nearly two years after the end of the war. His father, Ned Yuma, the sheriff, had been killed by a gang who took control of the town. Dan Blocker plays the gang leader. Yuma gets his father's shotgun in this episode.

The third episode, entitled "Yellow Hair", has Yuma captured by the historical Kiowa chief Satanta, played by native Mexican Rodolfo Acosta, whose fictional adopted white daughter is played by Carol Nugent, Nick Adams' wife.

Several place names mentioned throughout the episodes clearly place the action in post-Civil War Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Forts noted in episodes, such as Fort Griffin and Fort Concho, were actual frontier Texas outposts of the late 1860s and are now state historic sites. In a first-season episode, Yuma encounters rag-tag rebel CSA soldiers in the corrupt mining town of La Paz, Arizona. The actual town of La Paz was the seat of Yuma County between 1862 and 1870; it stood in the Confederate Arizona Territory, which existed briefly during the Civil War. Nothing remains of La Paz but crumbling foundations and a historical marker.

Singing the theme song over the titles each week, Johnny Cash also appears as a frustrated would-be rapist playing a banjo with mounting intensity as he excitedly peers through a window at his tied-up prey in the 13th episode, "The Death of Gray".

In "Vicious Circle", Yuma identifies the Confederate unit he served in as the 3rd Texas, but he does not indicate the branch of service. Other episodes show saddlebags stenciled with CSA and an old uniform jacket with yellow collar and cuffs, indicating his regiment was likely the 3rd Texas Cavalry.

Robert Blake guest stars as an extremely young gunslinger in the episode titled "He's Only a Boy".

The 25th episode, "Fair Game", gained attention at the end of 2015 because it appears to be a principal source for Quentin Tarantino's feature The Hateful Eight, including a female prisoner (Patricia Medina) and a few significant plot twists.

After the show's original run on ABC finished in June 1961, it was picked up by NBC and rerun as a summer replacement series from June to September 1962.

Cancellation

Adams as Yuma in 1960

The Rebel was a ratings success for ABC, commanding a 35% share of the Sunday-evening audience in its time slot, and was actually scheduled to be renewed for a third season, as part of a new hour-long series entitled The Rebel and The Yank, which would have again starred Nick Adams as the Rebel, and future The Virginian star James Drury starring as "the Yank", a former Union soldier working as a doctor in the Southern United States. Despite the show's success, ABC decided to pass on the series due to two factors, first, its violence (at a time when the network was trying to withdraw from violent programming), and second, the network's new "counterprogramming" format, in which a different type of show was scheduled against the network competition in that time slot, such as a comedy or variety show against an action-adventure show. Thus, The Rebel was cancelled, The Rebel and The Yank project never came to fruition. The series was replaced by a new variety show, starring Steve Allen. This program was not a success, lasting less than four months.^[3]

Theme song

The show's theme song, "The Rebel" alias "The Ballad of Johnny Yuma", was composed by Richard Markowitz, with lyrics by Andrew J. Fenady. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.^[4] It was recorded by Johnny Cash, but it was not released as a single until April 1961, shortly before the show went off the air. Nick Adams recorded the theme, which was released on Mercury Records (#71607) by March 1960. During syndication, the theme song was replaced by the DeWolfe Music Library instrumental track "Dodge City No. 1" by Jack Trombey.

Popular culture

Two episodes of the sitcom Seinfeld referenced the first line of The Rebel theme song. In the episode "The Heart Attack", Jerry retorts to Kramer that Johnny Yuma is a Rebel. The Rebel was also a 1966 Allan Sherman song from the album Allan Sherman Live!; and later, in 1994, it was applied to the compilation album My Son, the Greatest.

Merchandise

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Rebel (TV series).

• The Rebel at IMDb
• Pilot for the unsold seriesThe Yank starring James Drury