Heroes' Handguns in the '50's

[Texas Star]

Dick Tracy always carried a " S&W .357 Magnum Revolver" in the Sunday comics when I was a kid. I know this because all the equipment used in the strip was labeled.( two way wrist radio, tear gas projector, ect..)
Bond, James Bond. Agent 007 was issued a Walther PPK in 7.62mm ( "hits like a brick through plate glass ") and a S&W Bodyguard revolver. This was in the book "Doctor No".
At the end of the book, 007 sends a memo to the Armorer.
" Smith & Wesson ineffective on dragons."

I read the books as well as saw the movies and corresponded with the real Geoffrey Boothroyd. He didn't recommend the 7.65mm (.32) PPK; Fleming decided on that because he liked small autos. He did read an American Rifleman article evaluating WW II handguns of several sizes. Boothroyd suggested a S&W Centennial Airweight .38 as Bond's carry gun, with a Model 27 in his Bentley, to replace the "long-barrelled .45 Colt". I believe the Colt was a New Service, because I saw Ian Fleming with his in an article about him in, "Life." But it could have been a .45 auto.

The reason the .38 S&W was ineffective on "dragons" was that he used it against an armored swamp buggy wih solid rubber tires in, "Dr. No." His West Indian assistant Quarrel was fring at it with a .30 US carbine with also bad results.


S&W fans will be interested to learn that the bad guys had not only .30 carbines, but S&W .38's in "the usual model." I assume that meant the M&P/Model 10. "Dr. No" was published in 1958, the year after S&W began using model numbers. The movie appeared in 1962, the first Bond film. I have an envelope of studio stationery, a letter from Geoffrey Boothroyd. I doubt he knew that he was writing to a very young fan of the books.

BTW, "The Handgun" by Boothroyd (Crown Publishers) is probably the best basic book on handguns that I've ever seen. It is dated, as it was printed about 1967 or so. In it, he showed the S &W M-60 and declared it the obvious Bond gun, for its stainless construction. But Ian Fleming died in 1964, and it was not to be. Boothroyd is also now deceased, but he was a wonderfully gifted gun writer and a TV scriptwriter. His range of knowledge was quite varied.

 

[David LaPell]

From what I have red Boothroyd was an interesting man in his own right and really knew his stuff but was never as famous for his writings.

Here is some of the correspondence between himself and Fleming.

Letters of Note: May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?

 

[M29since14]

At which time did you become aware that autos prevailed, and that almost no civilian good guys had guns?

Is that question just in the fictional context? In real life, I don't know when, but one day I "woke up" and realized that EVERY cop in sight had a Glock!

Who knows when that was, but it happened quickly!

In fiction, the good old days for me are nicely illustrated by the two Hawaii Five-Os. McGarrett carried a snubnosed .38 with custom stocks, acted like he meant business, but treated others with a degree of decency and respect. Consider, in contrast, the current SIG P226-toting hot dog who dresses like a bum, acts like a clown, and breaks more laws than those he is threatening/beating up/killing/etc. (everything except arresting).

 

[Texas Star]

Is that question just in the fictional context? In real life, I don't know when, but one day I "woke up" and realized that EVERY cop in sight had a Glock!

Who knows when that was, but it happened quickly!

In fiction, the good old days for me are nicely illustrated by the two Hawaii Five-Os. McGarrett carried a snubnosed .38 with custom stocks, acted like he meant business, but treated others with a degree of decency and respect. Consider, in contrast, the current SIG P226-toting hot dog who dresses like a bum, acts like a clown, and breaks more laws than those he is threatening/beating up/killing/etc. (everything except arresting).

Well, I meant in fiction, but it probably mirrors reality.

I'm not a fan of the current McGarrett, but his James Caan son buddy is worse. The Asian cops and the blonde chick seem more acceptable, but only cosmetically.

Jack Lord was an active anti-gun spokesman, and I thought he was pretty egotistic and abrasive. The new guy doesn't rub me badly that way, but i don't know how he feels about gun ownership. At least, he isn't popping off against it.

 

[NE450No2]

One of the best movies for handgun guys is "THE WILD BUNCH".

They used not only Colt SAA, but also Colt 1911's.

They used some shotguns, Winchesters, and some machine guns as well.

I read some where that they shot more blanks filming that move than the total number of real rounds fired in the entire Spanish American War...

 

[Ray]

A disturbing note is that Jack Lord and Telly Savalas were both rabid anti gunners.
How amazing is that real life is so different from the screen.
Regards, Ray

 

[CO_Kid]

Last "hero" I saw to carry a sixgun was that commercial for a product I can't remember, where the "LT" tells the detective (who looks like he's just come through a war zone) that he wants his badge and gun. Gun out of the shoulder holster is a sixgun. Then come all the others and he finishes by plopping a rocket launcher on the desk on top of the other dozen guns.

Can't forget Riggs and Murtaugh either. Riggs with his Beretta, and Murtaugh with a revolver (never did figure out which make/model)

 

[TAROMAN]

My favorite show back then was "The Avengers".

Mrs Peel would sometimes be armed with a S&W 4th Model:

 

[Alpo]

Last "hero" I saw to carry a sixgun was that commercial for a product I can't remember, where the "LT" tells the detective (who looks like he's just come through a war zone) that he wants his badge and gun. Gun out of the shoulder holster is a sixgun. Then come all the others and he finishes by plopping a rocket launcher on the desk on top of the other dozen guns.

Can't forget Riggs and Murtaugh either. Riggs with his Beretta, and Murtaugh with a revolver (never did figure out which make/model)[/QUOTE]

According to IMDB, it's a 19, but unless Mel Gibson has got extremely small hands, it sure looks like an N to me. Probably a 28. Don't look shiny enough for a 27.

Lethal Weapon - imfdb :. guns in movies :. movie guns :. the internet movie firearms database

 

[MrAmbassador]

Superman, faster than a speeding bullet, black & white Model 10 4 " I think the color version showed a colt but not sure.

 

[Texas Star]

My favorite show back then was "The Avengers".

Mrs Peel would sometimes be armed with a S&W 4th Model:

I don't think that's a 4th Model; look at the lack of knurling on the cylinder release area. But my knowledge of S&W break-tops is marginal.

I did some research on them, though, because Rachel Blakely, playing Marguerite Krux on, "The Lost World" used break-tops. At various times, she carried a Webley (WP model?), an Iver Johnson (must have been cheap for the studio to rent, or the other similar guns were rented that day?) and a S&W very like this one.

I was indeed a fan of Mrs. Peel, played by Dame Diana Rigg. (Her elevation to the Peerage came after this show.) She later narrated a BBC mystery series about a cop in colonial Kenya, based on some books that I'd read. His assistant inspector was a real dead-eye shot, using a MK IV .38 Webley, which the Inspector also carried. Didn't make any effort to conceal it. Just wore the flapped holster under his suit coat. One guy on that series committed suicide with a Colt .32, I think a Pocket Positive or something very similar. Very well done series, for the more sophisticated viewer. Naturally, it appeared here on public TV.

In the case of Marguerite Krux, I wondered why she had hammerless revolvers, seeing as the series was set in a South American jungle, atop a mysterious plateau. But she used one in London to shoot a would-be assassin through her hand muff. Then, she casually went on to the Royal Zoological Society and offered to fund an expensive expedition for Prof. Challenger. The Aussie-filmed series was quite a bit better than Doyle's book, BTW. And the guns were better chosen.

I wrote some fan fiction about that series, and in later fics had Marguerite acquire a round-butt M&P with four-inch barrel for holster wear. I thought it made more sense. And I had her pal Finn swap her little crossbow for a five-inch barrelled M&P that she recovered from a perished expdition from the episode, "Suspicion", if you watched that series. Finn also acquired a Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5mm carbine with a Zeiss 'scope sight and a Winchester M-92 carbine in .44-40. I think those guns suited her and were likely to be found there. I really liked the .416 Rigby that Lord John Roxton, V.C. carried on the show, too. His handguns alternated between a Colt 1911 and a brace of nickled Webley MK VI .455's.

Does no one recall Dick Tracy using autos as well as snub .38's and a .357? I'm sure I saw autos in the comics.

Did any of you read the Modsty Blaise books or see the miserable movies and one US TV series based on her? She also ran as a comic strip in about 53 countries. Here, only the Detroit Free Press carried the strip, and they edited it on occasion, as it was too "adult" for US audiences. Author Peter O'Donnell, who also wrote the comics, chose the guns wisely. (He had three artists who drew the comic strip, the best perhaps being Ned Romero.) Modest has a cult folowing here, and the books are hard to find, although the bound comics are sometimes available. If you can find the novels, you're in for a treat, and some librarires may have them. Also, check the Net. The final novel was, "The Cobra Trap", published in the UK in 1996. It killed off Modesty and her pal Willie Garvin, so that no one could write the characters after the author retired. I think he made the right decision. No one has written James Bond "right" since Ian Fleming died.

 

[Alpo]

I read Modesty, years and years ago. Only things that really stick in my memory was she had trouble with a shoulder holster, 'cause her boob was in the way, the handle of her purse was removable and became a judo stick, and Willie carried two bowie knives in sheaths sewn to the inside of his jacket, with brass strips along the spine, so if he was knife-fighting, the other guy's edge would catch in the soft brass, instead of sliding up the hard steal to, maybe, cut him.

 

[Texas Star]

I read Modesty, years and years ago. Only things that really stick in my memory was she had trouble with a shoulder holster, 'cause her boob was in the way, the handle of her purse was removable and became a judo stick, and Willie carried two bowie knives in sheaths sewn to the inside of his jacket, with brass strips along the spine, so if he was knife-fighting, the other guy's edge would catch in the soft brass, instead of sliding up the hard steal to, maybe, cut him.

Yes! But Willie's usual knives were smaller, maybe five-inch blades. He did use Bowies on occasion.

In one book, he was saving a damsel in distress from kidnappers. It was on an island off of Panama. He had a Bowie for his diving knife, and killed one man with it.

Looking at his dead companion later, one villain commented on the wound by saying, "You'd not fix that with a styptic pencil!"


BTW, the dead bad guy wore an S&W Bodyguard snub .38. And another had an M-39 9mm auto.

 

[M29since14]

... The new guy doesn't rub me badly that way, but i don't know how he feels about gun ownership. At least, he isn't popping off against it.

If he is smart, he will keep his mouth shut and just let the money roll in.

I realize Lord later became a first-class Hollywood hypocrite about guns, but I don't recall detecting his personal bias when I was watching the TV shows way back when. Maybe it was there and I was just not sophisticated enough to pick up on it. My point was that his character tended to act more like a legitimate police officer. The current ones act like the south end of a north-bound horse.

 

[sipowicz]

Magnum PI was the first autoloader by a good guy I remember.

Hey...Starsky was a good guy,....and it was a Smith to boot!

I wanted one as my brother bought Hutch's 6 inch Python...but after a little research, I went with a Hi-Power...glad I did..

 

[feralmerril]

Geez guys! It`s just movies and actors. They just do or say what the director tells them. They dont have much say on their script or what props are given them. For a short while in the mid 60s I was a studio guard. I knew a few actors and watched them as they filmed. The surpriseing thing was I found many different than my preconceived notions of them. Jack lord was a real gentilman the few minuets I knew him and he bought me my lunch. I had a bad precieved opinion of broderick crawford until I chatted with him. Another I wont mention that I had always liked untill I had occasion to hear his mouth, but maybe it was his worst day. Brian keth went out of his way to do me a unasked for favor.
I seen some well known actors that I didnt reconise untill co workers might point them out.
Its not like the actor knows what gun HE would have liked to carry. There might be 10 grips, cameramen, electricians, carpenters standing there that knows guns better than the hero actor! Yet we seem to think him a expert and many would pay a fortune for the gun he used in a movie! Most were good guys, but I knew a few stinkers.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

One thing I have noted about UK productions is they often use VERY old handguns-in the first "Batman" movie the cops are carrying pre-WWII Colts.
I long ago quit paying attention to what Hollyweird types say and do, for them the concepts of hypocrisy or consistency are quite alien. The actor James Mason was a pacifist in WWII yet he played military leaders such as Rommel in "The Desert Fox" or a German officer in "The Blue Max" or Captain Nemo who kills people because he has apponted himself an avenger. Finding a Hollyweirdo who is anti-gun but regularly appears in shoot-em-ups or cop programs-again, if you don't know what hypocrisy is you can't be accused of practicing it.

 

[m657]

old thread...yet the continuing saga of Dick Tracy's guns endures....

re: "Does no one recall Dick Tracy using autos as well as snub .38's and a .357? I'm sure I saw autos in the comics." posted #31 above:

I too recall numerous times of seeing an auto prominently featured. I'm sure it was in the 1954-55-56 period. Wrist-TVs were just being flouted, and the old school bubble-gum machine siren/light on top of the police cars were still de riguer....although fascinating new stuff was always popping up.

Somehow I continue to 'remember' those looked an awful lot like todays squarish Sigs.....

 

[Malpasowildlifer]

Lewis Collins often had a Browning Hi Power on The Professionals

 

[the ringo kid]

Combat! - imfdb :. guns in movies :. movie guns :. the internet movie firearms database!
Combat! was a World War II television series that followed a squad of American soldiers throughout the war in Europe. The series starred Vic Morrow as Sgt. "Chip" Saunders and Rick Jason as Lt. Gil Hanley. The series aired on ABC from 1962-1967 and would feature several actors who go on to become big name stars including Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas, and James Caan.

Growing up as a boy, loved this show!!!
Still want a BAR, and Thompson.

Want and money don't meet up often.
Guy22

Same here money-wise. However,you can get new production Thompsons and other makes--under a grand. Dunno about new production BARS--if there are any? You can also get a semi-auto-bet-fed .30 cal--for about $3,000