This was definitely East Meets West. I mean, the boys from NYC get lost in a dry Texas community with the look of a ghost town and the plot is right out of GUNSMOKE, THE LONE RANGER, BONANZA, etc.
I could even more see the Cartwrights being held hostage by a crazed wrongfully incarcerated man than I could Tod & Buz. I know Texas towns hadn't changed much in the late '50s and early '60s; I mean, there WAS the tradition the dated back to the late 1800s, but this was obviously lifted from one of the Westerns of the latter period. I guess for that reason, Nelson Riddle employed a score that was part jazz and part Frontier. It worked.
I could even more see the Cartwrights being held hostage by a crazed wrongfully incarcerated man than I could Tod & Buz. I know Texas towns hadn't changed much in the late '50s and early '60s; I mean, there WAS the tradition the dated back to the late 1800s, but this was obviously lifted from one of the Westerns of the latter period. I guess for that reason, Nelson Riddle employed a score that was part jazz and part Frontier. It worked.