Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

bkoganbing Not to put too fine a point on it, but Yancy Derringer was essentially an informer. The premise of this show was that Derringer who carried several on his person was a most unofficial agent for Kevin Hagen the Yankee colonel in Reconstruction New Orleans. Jock Mahoney was the title character and he was a former Confederate colonel of the plantation gentry who has gracefully come to accept the defeat of the south. There are however a lot of hotheads who have all kinds of wild schemes and Hagen wants someone who can find out and can quash them or at least inform him.The white suited and courtly Yancy Derringer was about as far as you could get from Mahoney's other series where he was the buckskin, moccasin clad Range Rider. Mahoney had a silent Pawnee sidekick played by X Brands who took care of backshooters and others who had sinister designs.I doubt Yancy Derringer could be made today. The blacks in it were still quite subservient to Marse Yancy. He may have been a good master who never used the whip and never sold any slaves, but slavery was still slavery.Not a bad show for its time though.

pensman You get to be a certain age--old--and you yearn to see some of the old TV shows from your youth. Thanks to COZI and ANTENNA TV and DVD's a lot of those shows have become available. If your watching on TV you catch a couple of episodes and realize just how bad the acting and writing were. The reaction is worse if you bought a few seasons only to realize at twelve your critical viewing skills were minimal at best. However there are a few that not only live up to your memory but surpass your expectations and Yancy Derringer is one of those like Maverick. The writing was smart, the plots interesting, and the acting remarkably good. Jock Mahoney is fine as the lead and X Brands steals scenes even though he never speaks. I have a suspicion the success of the series owes much to the writing, producing, and directing team of Richard Sale and Mary Loos who apparently had total control over their collaboration. It's unfortunate this series ended after only one year. My wife suggested Sale and Loos may have divorced and that caused the demise. They did divorce but I have no idea when but regardless they did create a memorable show that still holds up. Another reason may have been the inclusion of A list character actors of that period including John Dehner, Robert Rockwell, Gene Evans, Dennis Patrick, Charles Maxwell, Ray Danton, Marie Windsor, Bill Williams, Claude Akins, John Qualen, and Robert Lowery to list a few. It was a rare episode that didn't include someone of contemporary note. If you can, try to get the series of 34 episodes, I believe you will be quite satisfied especially if you are of a certain age.

classicsoncall 1959 saw the debut of some fairly intelligent TV Westerns, among them "Rawhide" and "Wanted:Dead or Alive". Though nominally a Western as well, "Yancy Derringer" took as it's base of operations the city of New Orleans, and it's hero lived up to every one of the characteristics mentioned in my summary line above. Short lived for only one season, the series produced thirty four episodes, so by current standards, that might have easily stretched into a three season run.Yancy Derringer was portrayed by the athletic Jock Mahoney, a movie stunt man who had already starred in the early 1950's TV Western "Range Rider". He was ably assisted by his Pawnee friend and bodyguard, Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wa, understatedly portrayed by actor X. Brands. Pahoo's name in Pawnee meant 'Wolf Who Stands in Water', and his presence was explained by the fact that he once saved Yancy's life, and now felt a responsibility for him. I could never figure out why that was the case instead of the other way around, but it made for some good adventures.I liked the way the series gradually revealed it's continuity to the viewer in the early going. For example, the name of Madame Francine was first introduced in the third episode, but Frances Bergen didn't actually appear on screen until two shows later as the proprietor of Yancy's favorite gambling house. Other series regulars included Kevin Hagen as the appointed administrator of New Orleans, John Colton, and Richard Devon as the street wise pickpocket Jody Barker. For comic relief, you could count on Larry Blake as the local jailer, keeper of the keys, master of the damp wall and crown prince of the calaboose. Blake had his hands full keeping Yancy's incarcerations as pleasant, if not as profitable as possible.The show also featured a number of recurring guest stars, like Claude Akins as the scoundrel Toby Cook, Beverly Garland as bayou siren Coco LaSalle, and Kelly Thordsen as mountaineer Colorado Charlie. Jock Mahoney's wife Margaret Field, billed as Maggie Mahoney, also appeared in a number of stories as the niece of Administrator Colton. Perhaps the most unusual casting for a series guest was that of Nick Adams in the role of a Russian Count in "The Night the Russians Landed". One of the elements that kept the show interesting was the way real historical figures were woven into the story lines, like Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite after whom the Nobel Peace Prize was named), General George Custer, and famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady.I guess my favorite episode would have to be "Fire on the Frontier" in which Pahoo travels East to Washington, DC to represent his people before Congress. With Yancy as interpreter, Pahoo asks for military forces to help the Pawnee against attacks by the Cheyenne, as was established by the Table Creek Treaty. The name of Pahoo's father was revealed in the story as 'Moon on Pools of Water'.Perhaps the most interesting thing about the show in general was the unique friendship shared between Yancy and his bodyguard. Yancy always treated Pahoo with respect as an equal, and even though he didn't talk, Pahoo was exceptionally conversant with sign language, much more than Tonto ever was as the Lone Ranger's sidekick. One episode in particular demonstrated how much in tune the two heroes were; once with his back to Pahoo, Yancy caught Pahoo's dagger thrown from behind in order to make a point with an adversary. Going one better, another time Yancy answered Pahoo talking in sign language, while facing in a different direction! Usually ad-libbed, it was touches like these that made the show even more enjoyable.

edalweber Sonmetimes it is hard to understand just why a television series is so short lived.Lack of popularity is the most common reason of course;sometimes the death of a star ends its run prematurely.In the case of Yancy Derringer, it was corporate greed.Originally financed and owned by the writers and Jock Mahoney, it was so successful in its initial season that the network insisted on buying it.Jock Mahoney and the others refused;the network responded by concealing it.End of Yancy Derringer.The theme song was one of the most distinctive of 1950's television.It outlived its series,and can be frequently heard as b background music on episodes of "The Rifleman" made in the early 1960's.It is certainly strange that, considering how many fine TV series were made in the first 20 years of TV, so very few are ever shown,except for "I Love Lucy" and a few others.