Hello S&W fans.
Over the past few years, I have become a big fan of the Twilight Zone being the Sci-Fi buff that I am. Being also a gun enthusiast, I have noticed that while most other shows of the period like The Untouchables, Dragnet and Naked City seem to favor Colt .38 revolvers, Twilight Zone seemed to favor Smith & Wesson.
The show is littered with S&W .38 DA revolvers of different models and barrel lenghts. For instance a 5 inch barreled .38 Special M&P with an old style late 48s and early 50s hammer and diamond magna grips is what William Shatner used to shoot the Gremlin off the wing in the famous episode "Terror at 20,000 ft" Gangsters and street thugs are frequently seen using 3 inch barreled 5 shot Chief Specials and 2 inch Model 10s. Police and state troopers are always seen using 4 or 5 inch M&Ps.
I think in the entire series...I think I've only seen one Colt DA which was seen in the episode "The Midnight Sun" in which a lonely woman tries to protect herself and her apartment from a man scavenging for water in an abandoned NYC.

Interesting catch.

I'll start looking myself. I wish I would have seen this post before the New Year's Twilight Zone Marathon on the Sy-fi Channel. One thing though regarding Dragnet... I'm a big fan... while the earlier black and white episodes featured Jack Webb using a Colt Detective Special, the later episodes in the 1960s showed him carrying a S&W model 10 snub. Apparently, that is what the LAPD detectives were preferring at the time, and he wanted to reflect an accurate depiction.

In any event, it sounds like many of us enjoy picking out the various firearms used in classic TV and films. Hey... nothing wrong with that!

Yeah the NYD marathon would have been perfect. I always just kind leave the tv there for noise in the house if nothing else on NY eve and day. I happen to have all five seasons on DVD uncut (you'd be surprised how much is cut from episodes on Sci-Fi)
I recall one of the 4th season full hour episodes where a reporter, is trapped in a strange town off the beaten path that is determined to keep him there so he doesn't reveal their secretly advanced technology. He uses a computer that creates anything at a command kinda like the Replicator in Star Trek TNG. Thumbs through the command file looking for a weapon. Comes upon a file tab labeled ".38 Police Special" Sticks the paper into the machine and a Smith & Wesson M&P 5 inch barrel with Magna grips appears in the tray. Good up close shot too. He even checks it opening the cylinder.

Look also for a street thug burgler trying to kill the jovial gentlemanly Sebastian Cabot with a 5 shot 3 inch chief's sepcial.

Look for that same kind of gun being used by the Professor from Gilligan's Island to try to stop on outlaw from the old west that he has pulled from a hangman's noose and 50 years into the future using a time machine he invented.

Take a walk in "dead man's shoes" and you'll find S&W all over the place

btw, regarding dragnet, Joe's partner kinda did the same thing. In the 1950s version Frank Smith used a 6 inch Colt Official Police, in the 1960s version Bill Gannon used a 4 inch S&W Model 19 (or could have been M-15, hard to tell in the 1st season episode The Big Explosion)

It was Hutch's Python that drove me to pick one up eventually, though I got a 4" instead of a 6".

Eddie Murphy used a Browning Hi-Power in Beverly Hills Cop. Interesting since I've never heard of US cops ever using a single-action 9mm.

You gotta love Magnum's 1911 GI .45 on his show.

I recognized the Colt Detective Special from its grip on Barney Miller's hip.

Oops, kinda got off topic from S&W revolvers. Sorry.

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Jon

Speaking of Dragnet, did you know that show showcased the Smith and Wesson .38 Chiefs Special? And did you further know that a Model 39 was presented to Jack Webb at the S&W factory with serial number "714" in reference to Sgt. Joe Friday's badge number. I found this out after reading Roy Jinks excellent book "Images of America, Smith & Wesson" (page 46.). It shows a pic of Friday and Gannon at the factory receiving the gun. I love S&W's on TV.
Check it out.

Roger

Exactly so! on that S&W in "Terror at 20,000 Feet." I pointed it out to my wife and kids who, of course, could not have cared less. I do seem to remember an episode with a state trooper armed with a Colt OP. He goes out to assist a woman who has an alien spacecraft land in her yard.
Chris

A S&W also gets much exposure in the 2009 movie "The Road"...the Model 10 plays a prominent role in the story.

I saw an episode of the Outer Limits last weekend where Robert Culp was a robot with a glass computer hand, charged with saving all of humanity. Aliens from the future were trying to kill him and get the hand. The aliens traveled thru a mirror from a thousand years in the future… armed with S&W .38/44 H.D.’s!

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"I also cook."

Well of course! One would expect aliens with that kind of technology to have excellent taste in firearms.

That was the episoe "The Fear" and it was not an Official Police, but in fact another S&W 5 inch M&P .38 spl. It was a woman's retreat cabin in the mountains of upstate New York. She was commenting on strange happenings and sightings in the woods at night and the trooper decided to come up one night and investigate.

Hmmm...I thought Joe had a M-10 2 inch with a round grip. Everytime it shows the front if his gun I seem to remember 6 chambers instead of 5. Furthermore he unloads it and shows it to a woman who is trying to describe a gun a kidnapper is using in the episode "The Kidnapping". He then reloads all six rounds and "whacks" the gun shut hollywood style (yikes)

cool! I I have all three seasons of Outer Limits on DVD now. I'll have to find that episode. Outer Limits, to me, isn't as good as Twilight Zone...can't quite put my finger on it. I enjoy them but they are either missing something or try to do to much.

Something in my mind is telling me that episode resulted in some kind of legal trouble when James Cameron released The Terminator in 1984. I know the Terminator seemd to take a lot of it's story from two episodes of Outer Limits

My wife got me the Twilight Zone set on DVD some time ago, but I do watch it every New years Day (she thinks I'm nuts). I'll now pay more attention to the "roscos" being carried in the different episodes.

I find myself missing the action because I am trying to ID what gun is being used. DVR helps.

"Interesting since I've never heard of US cops ever using a single-action 9mm."

One of my LTs at the PD in Alabama carried a 9mm High Power.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Just an interesting tid-bit... my uncle Vic Perrin was the 'control voice'
on the original Outer Limits series.
He is also in some very early episodes of Dragnet, and was the protagonist in the Dragnet movie.

Vic Perrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vic Perrin - Biography

His brother Lloyd was my father.

Regards
Allen Frame

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NRA cert.instructor&R.S.O.

Interesting, he was also, I noticed, in Twilight Zone episode "People are Alike All Over"
That's interesting. And one of those links says your dad was a news reporter in Los Angeles.
Never connected the actor with the Outer Limits voice

The two State Troopers in "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up" were carrying S&W M-10 4 inch barrels

I believe the FBI's HRT originally carried High Powers.

The Detriot Police never authorized single action pistols for duty use; including the Browning or Colt at the time the movie was released

benettfam: Don't feel too bad. Believe it or not he used both a 4" and a 6" Python during the first season. After he got rid of the little 38 he carried the 4" then switched to the 6" Python. In some episodes he used both. You can tell by the grips. The 4" Python used the wood grips and the 6" Python used the Pachmayer grips. David Soul who played Hutch also was in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movie "Magnum Force" and carried the 4" Python. This is where he got the idea of the Python for Hutch.

[QUOTE=bennettfam;135777958]
Eddie Murphy used a Browning Hi-Power in Beverly Hills Cop. Interesting since I've never heard of US cops ever using a single-action 9mm.

Maybe he bought his own, like Al Pacino in "Serpico".

He and his buddies were much cooler as bad biker cops in Magnum Force with his 4 inch Python .357 Magnums.

Sure. FBI HRT, Axel Foley and Serpico I could have guessed. But that Alabama Lt...he must have been a maverick!

Good quality handgun choice.

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Jon

directed by Sam Peckinpaugh(whoops, I mean John Milius) with Warren Oates (a very underated actor in my opinion) has two 38/44's and a Triplelock plus numerous Colts and Star model B's in .38 super as stand ins for the scarce Colt's in same caliber. Warren Oates, Ned Beatty, and Harry Dean Stanton all went to University of Louisville at the same time.

Warren Oates first role was in the Twilight Zone episode about the Montana National Guard tank crew who slip through time and have an opportunity to help Custer at Little Big Horn.

The earliest I can find Harry Dean Stanton is the premier episode of "Combat" he plays a soldier who deliberatley hurts his foot on D-Day because he doesn't want to hit the beach.

Whoops, Not Sam Peckinpaugh directed but John Milius Directed. I guess an NRA board member would have cool guns in a film he directed.

I love these threads and I will continue to promote "Dillinger" 1973 as one of the best Revolver films of all time until someone agrees. Ben Johnson plays Purvis.

I love these threads, too. "Twilight Zone," is one of my absolute favorite shows. It makes me happy to see my 12 year-old daughter appreciate it - the show has enduring value.

"Dillinger" was great. Remember when Ben Johnson shows the boy his nickle-plated "Colt"?

Don't get me started on "Combat."

I never realized that was Warren Oates in "The Seventh is Made up of Phantoms" LOL!! I had seen him that young in other things from back then, but never connected him to Warren Oates 70s movies like Dillinger and The Wild Bunch. Ben Johnson was Warren Oates' buddy in The Wild Bunch. Warren Oates always played good hicky guys.

I remember another episode where a man can change is face like a shape shifter to look like anybody he wants. He ends up gunned down by a man with a S&W M&P at the end mistaken for somebody else

My Dad said he was like Lee Marvin in the sense that when he finally got recognized by the "Academy" it was for playing a drunk fool in "Cat Ballou". Warren got nominated (and may have won) for playing Sgt. Hulka in "Stripes". I think they felt guilty for passing them both up over the years. He sort of played himself most of the time and like the Everly Brothers, John Prine's parents, Merle Travis (I think) he was from Muhlenberg County Kentucky. That's alot of talent to come out of such a small place. Must be something in the limestone and the Green River.

I love the scene in Dillinger with Purvis and the shoeshine boy. Purvis asks if he wants to be a G man when gets older and the kid said "Heck no, I want to be like Dillinger!"

Purvis going in to get a bad guy. "Vest.....Cigar....Light...." He then carries his nickled "Colts" akimbo style to get his man. Great acting. I was suprised to see Richard Dreyfuss (young) as I think Baby Face Nelson.

Oates is real good in "Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" Kris Kristoferson and Donnie Frits (for you seventies country fans) play outlaw bikers and Oates plays a honky tonk piano player who carries a Colt Combat Commander and the head of guy who slighted a Mexican Mafia kingpins daughter on her wedding day in a sack to collect a reward. It's dark and funny in a perverse way and Oates just nails this two bit, scheming, piano player to a T.

HA, right now I am watching the 5th season episode "In Praise of Pip" I just watched Jack Klugman demonstrate the 21 ft. rule with a pocket knife against a hood armed with a .38 M-10 2 inch

If you watch the opening sequence where he slams the mag into the gun, it is obviously either a 9mm or 38 Super mag. definately not a .45.

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Formerly know as Lucky Derby

Years ago, when I was a security guard in a grocery store, I had a Henrico County (Va) plainclothes cop working with me one night. He was armed with a Browning Hi-Power. I remember it well, because this was in the day when more or less no cops carried semi's.

I remember a classic "little old lady" coming up to me that night and giving me the "shhhhh" finger to her lips. She then pointed to a man standing near the front of the store. She wispered..."That man has a GUN!" (This was in the before "shall issue" days). You could clearly see the outline of the Hi-Power in his SOB holster. under his sweatshirt. I wispered back..."That man is a policeman." She nodded knowingly..."OH!" and went on with her shopping.

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John 3:16 .

Would Tim Selleck really do such a thing to his character's Vietnam Vet persona?

Good catch Andy.

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Jon

How can you tell that? I just tried to watch it on youtube and couldn't really tell much at all

these two killers dressed like cops from this opening scene of a Peter Gunn are using 5 inch S&W .38 M&Ps. YouTube - Peter Gunn - The Kill 1/3
Does this scene look familiar to anybody else? (hint, it's something that has been mentioned in this thread)

Doug.38PR, I believe the NRA did an article once on Tom Selecks guns. I believe they said the Colt he used in "Magnum P.I." was in 9mm because the blanks were easier to get than for the 45. It was a 9mm though.

Wow next time wifey tells me I have too much time on my hands and am waisting time watching tv, I am going to bring up this forum.

Many of the "1911's" in movies and on TV are 9mm's. 9mm blanks are much more in use by movie prop people.

In fact I have some 9mm blanks that were given to me by the Stembridge "gun guy" durring the shooting of HEAT.

For those who are interested about the firearms used in Magnum P.I. here is a link to a site called IMFDB (Internet Movie Firearms Database). Also many of the other movies talked about on this thread are covered. It's a fun site. Check it out.

http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/Magnum%2C_P.I.

I hope you don't mind me jumping into your thread, but I'd like to add a confirmation to the above:

"The main handgun used by Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) is a Colt MKIV/Series 70 Government Model, which is a commercial version of the U.S. Military M1911A1. This handgun is supposed to be the one he carried during his service in Vietnam and is sometimes carried in a tanker-style holster, most often seen carried inside wast band small of back, no holster. It is sometimes seen in Magnum's flashbacks to Vietnam. A former propmaster for the show has been quoted saying that the original gun was a traditional .45 ACP 1911, but was soon changed to a 9mm version because .45 ACP blanks were too hard to get on location for the show."

source: Magnum, P.I - imfdb :. guns in movies :. movie guns :. the internet movie firearms database.

Sorry about that Checkman... I responded to Message #30 and when I reviewed my post I found that you had already supplied the answer.

Sure thing. I'm not that sensitive.

The name of the episode is Demon With A Glass Hand