The Rebel

One nice things about streaming services is that it allows me to occasional see episodes of old TV shows that I knew about, but never saw. The 1959-1961 series The Rebel, for instance, is always one I've been curious about. 

I've watched the first four episodes via Amazon Prime and I've enjoyed them all so far. The series starred and was co-created by Nick Adams, who plays Johnny Yuma, a Confederate veteran who wanders around the American Southwest, writing a book and inevitably getting involved in dangerous situations. With his six-gun and a cool-looking sawed-off shotgun, he can handle himself well when things do get dangerous. Adams gives Johnny a strong personality, making us believe the former soldier is smart, tough and compassionate.

The fourth episode, titled "Vicious Circle," is particularly good. It begins with a couple of former Yankee soldiers beating the snot out of him, because they assume (as a former Reb) that he knows where a guy named Pollack is located.

Johnny does find Pollack a short time later. The man is a not-quite-sane former Captain who still wears his uniform and has, in fact, promoted himself to General. He plans to restart the war, as he sees Appomattax to be nothing more than a short pause in the action.

Johnny finds out that, during the war, Pollack used Union prisoners as forced labor to mine gold nearby. It soon becomes apparent that Pollack has a fortune of gold hidden somewhere. Those two Yanks Johnny encountered were the only surviving prisoners and now wanted to both get revenge and get the gold.

Pollack has surrounded himself with other former Confederates, but they are a drunken lot that doesn't really take him seriously. Johnny befriends one of them and they decide to search the old mine for the gold, with Johnny (who is scrupulously honest) planning on turning the gold over the the government. For Johnny, the war is over. He just hopes to one day find a real peace.

The episode ends with a tense encounter in the mine, where Johnny finds evidence of just how murderous Pollack and then has to confront both the madman and the two Yanks.

It might have been interesting if the two Yankees (who had, after all, legitimately suffered at Pollack's hands) had been portrayed with a little more sympathy. That might have made the character interactions throughout the episodes more interesting and complex. But it's not really fair to criticize the episode for what it didn't set out to be. What we are given is a well-written story with a strong plot and a number of interesting characters. 

There's also a theme running through the episode about the country needing to heal from the war. Guys like Pollack and the Yankees were essentially still fighting a war that had ended and people were dying senselessly because of this. 

The episodes I've watched so far have not discussed the relative merits of the Union vs. the Confederacy. Nor does it need to, though I'm wondering if I'll run into an episode dealing with the issue of slavery and how Johnny felt about it or if he personally felt as if he was fighting to preserve it.  I've never cared for the idea that the Confederacy was a "noble lost cause," as it was often portrayed in fiction.Though there were a number of things that caused tension between North and South, it was slavery alone that caused secession and war. But not everyone who fought for the South was a villain and there is nothing wrong with portraying a former rebel as a good man. Johnny represents a man who accepts the war is over; and who wants his country to be at peace and for himself to eventually find an inner peace. 

Here's "The Vicious Circle" on YouTube, but as I mentioned, as of July 2020 when this posts, it is on Amazon Prime.