Bonanza Dark Star

BONANZA is a sprawling western television series about wealthy rancher Ben Cartwright and his three sons---Adam (Pernell Roberts), a two-fisted gunfighter with a penchant for design and engineering; Hoss (Dan Blocker), a huge and slightly dimwitted but good-hearted strongman in a big white ten-gallon hat; and Little Joe (Michael Landon, later of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE), a young hothead always getting into trouble over women or disputes of any imaginable description with almost anybody. Like all 1950s TV western series leads, the Cartwrights were superb fistfighters, able to knock almost anyone unconscious with a single blow from either fist. Ben had the enviable advantage of having apparently been everywhere and done everything prior to settling down on his thousand-acre empire ("the Ponderosa") outside Virginia City, Nevada, so he could always speak from an intimidating reservoir of experience. In "Dark Star," when a gypsy chieftain (Hugo Haas) condemns one of his tribe's women to death for being a witch, a beautiful young woman (Susan Harrison) seeks sanctuary in the arms of Little Joe on the Ponderosa.