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Branded is an American Western series which aired on NBC from 1965 through 1966, sponsored by Procter & Gamble in its Sunday night 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time period, and starred Chuck Connors as Jason McCord, a United States Army Cavalry captain who had been drummed out of the service following an unjust accusation of cowardice.
1965
Jason McCord comes to the aid of a man, Jed Colbee, who he finds on foot and near death in the desert. Colbee tell Jas of his wife Sally & his daughter Jessie... who will be five in three days and how important it is for his ""Survival"" and to get to Granite Wells before the wagon train pulls out. With half a canteen of water & one horse, they head out for a two day ride to Granite Wells. Colbee fears that two men can't make the desert...but one man alone would have a better chance. So he leaves Jas with no horse and no water. An old indian finds Jas and gives him water & a burro and tells him to find the man and repay him for doing this to him. Jason sets out for revenge and seeks out Colbee...but when he sees Colbee and his daughter he has a change of heart. He wishes Jessie a ""happy birhday."" Jason says to Colbee..""you still owe me a cup of cheer"" and rides off. trivia...Jason McCord's horse is named ""Domino.""
""What happened at 'Bitter Creek'?"" That's what Ned Travis - a newspaper reporter from the New York Herald wants to know. His editor sent him west to do a story on Jason McCord. He searches out the widow of Lt. John Pritchett who was third in command and served under McCord. While questioning John's widow the reporter finds out that she has some letters which her husband had sent her and how he talks of General Reed and that he feels there was something wrong with him and how McCord always covers up for the General. Jas tells the reporter ""What happened at 'Bitter Creek' is between him and his conscience."" Jas talks to Mrs. Pritchett and tells her that the letters could destroy the peace with the Indian Nations and convinces her to destroy the letters. So Jason roams the west still ""branded"" a coward.
While on his way to Sioux Falls.....Jason unintentionaly involves a Catholic priest in a deadly encounter with four drunken Comanches. Jason ends up killing three of the four Comanches. But he is upset when this strange does not take part in helping him defends the two of them? As he approaches the stranger with anger.....he sees his white collar and his cross. He then understands. He goes back to the mission with Father Durant. While working outside at the mission an indian approches the priest and tells them Chief Looking Glass wants to see the long coat(Father Durant). The Chief accuses them of killing the three braves and the priest must fight Wild Horse - who was the fourth indian who had lied to the Chief about what had happened. Jason wants to fight for the priest and tells the Chief of a different kind of bravery and courage. And puts the priest to a ""test"" to prove how stong and brave the father really if. And how he does not fight and will turn the other cheek. The c
As Jas arrives in the town of Mckinley.....he sees someone he knew from the past. Elsie Brown - a saloon girl from Carson City. Now - Elsie Baron - a dressmaker. She remembers the ""tall man"" and reminds him that he owes a her a favor from when he got pinned down by a wagon and she had helped him. And she wanted to collect that favor...now! An old - so called friend - Vance - has come into town and her shop and told the customers of her reputation and discourages them to do business with her tries to force her to go with him. With the whole town afraid of him and the Sheriff not too sure he can handle him by himself hires Jas to help him. When Vance is found shot in the back of course they blame Jas. Vance's brothers Ben & Cody came into town looking for revenge. The Sheriff tells Jas and the town people he was the one who shot Vance in the back. Jason takes control of the situation and tells the town that they have misjudged Elsie and they should hope she gives them another ch
While standing at the bar in a saloon, some cowboy comes up behind Jas and paints a yellow streak down his back. A fight breaks out amongst Jas and the Starrett brothers. Another cowboy by the name of Johnny Dolan steps in and helps Jas. Jas later finds out that his new friend is a bounty hunter and he is ""The Bounty."" The stranger forces Jas outside of town, but before he could kill Jas the Starrett brothers intervene and in a shoot out the bounty hunter gets shot but before he dies he tells Jason of a Paxton Detective Agency that is offering a $5,000 reward for the death of Jason McCord. So Jas goes to find out more on this bounty and pretends he killed Jason McCord and wants the reward. Using a grave, his sabre and his sexton as proof. Matthew Paxon the owner was just a go between and a meeting was set up between the two men with the man offering the reward. The man offering the reward was Thomas Frye, he was a civilian scout for the calvary and General Reed had hired him agai
While passing by a cemetary; Jas notices a Quaker lady kneeling over a grave. While talking to Mrs. Cooper; some riders approach them and give her a rough time. Jas tangles with a man by the name of Karp and beats him. The Man in charge - Renger - lost his arm fighting for his country and won't let this women forget that her husband, being a Quaker did not fight. He also wants to buy her land because she has the water rights. She tells him he can have all the water they want but he wants the land and she can't sell it because she has 6 other families coming to live on it. She and her husband had wanted to start a community of Quakers. Jas offers to help this lady around her ranch. Renger gets jealous and wants to court her for a month and maybe marriage. With all the land he owns and her water rights they could have one really large ranch. Of course she turns him down but wants to be a good friend and neighbor to him and who know what will happen later? You can see the chemis
A young deputy (Johnny Crawford) is ordered by a gang of thieves to surrender the town so they can rob the bank. Because of a silver strike in a nearby town, all that's left of the town is a deputy, a one-legged bartender and the senior citizens. They take the deputy's wife hostage and threaten to burn the town if he does not do what they say. While on his way to do a engineering job, Jas stops in this town and offers to help the deputy and the town. He tells Clay (the deputy), ""you'll have to stand up to them boy.....I'll back you."" Jas, the deputy and the town's citizens all pitch in and help Jas take back their town. Jas gives the young deputy some fatherly advice, a scene that they shared on the ""Rifleman"" hundreds of times.
Jason McCord is asked to return to Washington at the request of an old flame whose father happens to carry some influence. It seems that a number of people in various businesses want to have the treaty negotiated by General Reed vacated so a new treaty, more beneficial to the current business interests, can be made. The only way to do this is to declare Gen. Reed incompetent. Since the only officer who could testify against Reed is McCord, the businessmen need his help, help that Jas refuses to give. As he storms out of the building, members of the Secret Service approach McCord. The President wants to meet with the former Captain to offer him a mission that could avert a war with Mexico.
McCord manages to meet with and infiltrate the Mexican bandits under the command of a rogue Mexican General. Jason convinces the bandits that his knowledge of military procedure will give them an edge in their most audacious atack yet; the theft of gold from a US Army fort. The plan calls for McCord to lead the group into the fort disguised as an Army unit. Unfortunately, a group sent out to collect uniforms for the plan comes back with the uniform of Col. Snow, McCord's contact. With the only person who knew of McCord's mission for the President dead and a Mexican General who plans to kill him after the job is done, McCord has only one choice - he has to go ahead with the raid.
McCord turns on the Mexican bandits as they try to steal the gold from the Army fort. Unfortunately, the Commanding Officer recognizes McCord and decides that the coward of Bitter Creek deserves hanging as much as the others. Despite pleas to contact Washington, the C.O. plans to go through with hanging all of the men, including McCord. Only an ingenious last second stunt that tricks one of the Mexicans into confessing that McCord was a spy saves Jason.
McCord pays a call on the family of a Confederate officer he was forced to kill in battle during the war. The father hasn't taken the loss of his first son very well, taking it out on his younger son in the form of perpetual disappointment. When the younger son learns that McCord killed his brother, he decides to gain his father's favor by killing Jason.
West Point Cadet Bain faces expulsion for making statements that support McCord's actions at Bitter Creek. Taking his outstanding record into account, the Academy gives Bain one month to re-consider his opinion. If he doesn't tender an apology to the Commandant, who happens to be the man who wrote the opinion on McCord's court martial, after a month, the cadet will face his own court martial. Meanwhile, Jason is working as an engineer on a silver mine that won't drain. Bain joins up with the outfit McCord is working with and tries to determine the truth about Bitter Creek.
Jason and his friend Roy ride into a town after working on a long cattle drive. Miss Benson hires McCord as a supervisor for her expanding ranch but when Jason begins his new job, he finds a number of men waiting to rough him up. As the abuse continues, Jason begins to suspect that this is more than just a group of people seeking revenge for Bitter Creek and all of the clues point to McCord's lovely new boss.
Chuck Connors
Captain Jason McCord
1965
A drifter robs McCord,stealing his horse. When he strolls into a saloon looking for trouble, the bandit winds up getting killed. After finding a letter addressed to Jason in the dead man's belonings, the town turns the young man who killed Jason McCord into a hero. That is, until the real Jason McCord shows up and wants his name back.
McCord gets caught up in a land use battle revolvoing around the seemingly orphaned son of an old friend. When the boy's estranged Uncle shows up to take the boy and the land rights he now owns, it's up to McCord to get the boy's Indian housekeeper, Neela, to speak up about her connection to the boy and his father.
McCord is paid to survey the newly acquired US possession of Alaska, where he finds evidence of gold and oil in abundance. But others want to steal the report to monopolize the find for themselves.
McCord saves a man who claims to have witnessed the massacre at Bitter Creek. The witness agrees to testify to the Army that McCord didn't run out on the battle but something about the story doesn't seem to ring true for Jason.
Another flashback episode, McCord stops off at the grave of a friend and remembers the incident that brought them together. Both captured by Indians, the Chief makes the coward and the Black soldier fight to the death.
Macon and McCord are forced to fight to the death.
McCord's skills as a fighter cause him to turn down an offer from P.T. Barnum. Barnum uses McCord's name and the massacre at Bitter Creek as the basis for his new Wild West Show, which irritates McCord. To get Barnum to drop the Bitter Creek reenactment, McCord engineers the merger between the Barnum & Bailey circuses.
McCord is picked up by a group of soldiers who say they will try him not only for cowardice in the deadly Indian raid that killed everyone but him, but for complicity in planning it! However, the action is a ruse set up by President Ulysses S. Grant himself (Grant and McCord's father are longtime Army buddies and Grant believes in McCord).
McCord happens across a young Indian woman and a dead companion while traveling. He tries to help the women only to run afoul of a trio of wolf trappers, one of whom has taken the Indian as his own. Classic 60's Bruce Dern psycho performance.
McCord in awakened by a messenger from President Grant, bearing a bottle of whiskey. McCord remembers a chance meeting during the Civil War with the future President when they were both captured by Confederate soldiers.
A feud between two wealthy and powerful ranchers reaches a new level when one of them (McCord's friend) imports barbed wire from the East and plans to use it to fence in his herd. The other rancher, believing in the open range and gathering up as many unbranded "mavericks" as possible en route to market, sets up a stampede to wipe out the new fence, and who cares about the consequences. Sherry Jackson plays the young daughter of the friendly rancher who takes matters, literally, into her own hands with near-disastrous results.
Jason McCord is sent undercover by the President to gain information on a potential Presidential bid by General George Armstrong Custer. Because McCord and Custer are old Academy buddies, President Grant hopes that Jason can uncover information on a plot to incite an Indian war that will place Custer in the Oval Office.
The crisis averted and Custer's political ambitions quelled for now, McCord and Custer part ways as Custer tells his friend he is on his way to a place called Little Big Horn.
McCord returns to Washington once again only to find himself in the middle of a plot to assassinate the President. McCord discovers the plot only to wind up unconscious and captured by the assassins.
McCord escapes his captors after finding out that the President will be poisoned by a performer at a costume party that night. Jason runs into Ashley and knocks him out, taking his costume and invitation. McCord saves the President in front of most of Washington and his Grandfather, erasing most people's notion that he was ever a coward.
