User Reviews

Some elements of The Magnificent Seven are in this Laredo episode. Only Neville Brand is involved in this story along with guest Ranger Claude Akins. Both are cut in the same rough manner. And this is a great case of two of the meanest villains on the big screen showing a flare for comedy.

Both guys are doing a little r&r in a Mexican settlement when Lane Bradford and Ray Ballard are there also and are harassing the Mexicans. Brand decides to take a hand and Akins recognizes that Ballard has a wanted poster on him.

Bradford with no wants out on him leaves with a threat to bring an army of gunslingers back. The citizenry is frightened, but Reese promises to train them the way Yul Brynner and the rest did against Eli Wallach and his gang.

The cultures do clash here and they decide if there will be a peasant army they need a general and Neville Brand gets elected. The sight of Brand in a uniform that Santa Anna would have found ostentatious is reason and laughs enough to watch this Laredo episode.

Reese (Neville Brand) and semi-regular Claude Akins (as Cotton "Buck" Buckmmeister ) stop gringo border bandits from robbing Spanish farmers in the southern city of San Diablo. The hapless farmers are grateful for Reese's particular mastery, and make him "Captain" of their village. While Mr. Akins tends to prisoner Ray Ballard (as Dandy Davis), Reese tries to turn some of the town's farmers into soldiers. But, it's, as Reese states, like trying to make "a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Meanwhile, Akins and his ward hear of, and search for, a lost treasure...

Neville Brand was back at work full-time for this episode. However, co-stars Peter Brown, William Smith, and Philip Carey are completely absent. Curiously, Chad (Brown) and Joe (Smith) are "replaced" by Claude Akins and (after the opening) Ray Ballard. Probably, the regular co-stars took a break from this, an episode which utilized them lightly; and, the script was re-worked. Usually, Akins replaced the absent (or nearly absent) Mr. Brand. Or, not...

** The Treasure of San Diablo (2/17/66) William Witney ~ Neville Brand, Claude Akins, Pedro Gonzales

Why didn't they let Claude Akins be a regular on Laredo? He and Neville Brand worked well together.