thumb|250px|Left to right: [[Pete Duel, William Windom and Ben Murphy in Alias Smith and Jones (1971) ]]

Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western television series that originally aired on ABC from January 1971 to January 1973.

Plot

Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes are outlaws who wish to go straight. Through a friendly sheriff, the pair negotiate an amnesty with the governor of Wyoming. The amnesty will be turned in a full pardon as long as the pair stay out of trouble for 12 months. The deal is complicated by it remaining a secret between the four men, so during the 12 months the pair are still wanted men. To try and obtain the pardon they adopt the pseudonyms Joshua Smith (Heyes) and Thaddeus Jones (Curry). The series follows their exploits in evading capture and avoiding any crimes.

Cast and characters

The original casting had Pete Duel as Heyes/Smith and Ben Murphy as Curry/Jones. During the three series Murphy appeared in all 50 episodes.

In the early morning hours of December 31, 1971, series star Pete Duel died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 31. He was reportedly suffering from depression and had been drinking heavily when he shot himself. Upon learning of Duel's death, executive producer Jo Swerling Jr. initially wanted to end the series, but ABC refused. Swerling later stated:

<blockquote>ABC said, "No way!" They said, "You have a contract to deliver this show to us, and you will continue to deliver the show as best you can on schedule or we will sue you." Hearing those words, Universal didn't hesitate for a second to instruct us to stay in production. We were already a little bit behind the eight ball on airdates. So, we contacted everybody, including Ben (Murphy), and told them to come back in. The entire company was reassembled and back in production by one o'clock that day shooting scenes that did not involve Peter — only 12 hours after his death.

Universal contract player Ben Murphy was offered to the producers because he was considered a Paul Newman lookalike.

Parts of the television series were filmed at Castle Valley and Professor Valley in Utah.

Episodes

Home media

The entire series has been released on DVD.

{| class=wikitable style="text-align:center"

! DVD set

! Episodes

! width=110px| Release date

! width=136px| Company

|-

| align="left"| Alias Smith and Jones: Season 1

| 15

|

| Universal Home Video

|-

| align="left"| Alias Smith and Jones: Seasons 2 & 3

| 35

|

| Timeless Media Group

|-

| align="left"| Alias Smith and Jones: The Complete Series

| 50

|

| Timeless Media Group

|-

|}

Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the complete first season of Alias Smith and Jones in Region 2 on June 11, 2007.

References

  • Alias Smith & Jones Collection
  • Alias Smith & Jones Image Library