Yancy Derringer (TV Series) Return to New Orleans (1958) User Reviews

Entertaining first episode

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 3 December 2015]

YANCY DERRINGER "Return to New Orleans" 1958

This 1958-59 series is about a card sharp, who returns home to New Orleans three years after the end of the Civil War. The man, Jock Mahoney, finds the city full of Northern carpet bagging types. He is secretly put to work as an undercover man by the city commissioner, Kevin Hagen. Mahoney is to keep Hagen advised on the various low-life types running wild in the city. He does this with the help of his Pawnee bodyguard, X. Brands. The series ran for a total of 34 episodes.

In this episode, we find Yancy Derringer, (Jock Mahoney) returning back to New Orleans. He has been away from his home for 8 years. He had fought with the Confederate Army, been wounded and captured. After the war he had tried his luck out California way. He has now decided to return home. He is accompanied by a Pawnee brave (X. Brands) named, Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah.

After a less than friendly game of cards with several men who are not amused with losing, trouble starts. Knives and various pistols are drawn. It is only Jock Mahoney's man, X.Brands, stepping up with a double barrelled shotgun that stops any bloodshed.

Now Julie Adams steps into the plot. Adams and Mahoney had been an item before the war. She escorts him the rest of the way to New Orleans. Mahoney is less than amused when Adams springs that she has been running a casino out of his old family plantation. She blames the city commissioner, Kevin Hagen. Hagen, she says is a crook who takes a rake-off of the casino. She also adds it was the only way to save the plantation from carpet baggers.

Next we have the re-appearance of the pistol packing men from the start. Again the knives and guns come out and iron flies. The right people end up with a mess of unneeded holes about their person. It also turns out Miss Adams has been less than truthful. She and the gun toting bunch had wanted Mahoney dead. Adams had been pretending to be the wife of Mahoney. Everyone thought he had been killed in the war. Also on the scene is the commissioner, Hagen. Hagen is not a criminal, and wants Mahoney to help him clean up New Orleans.

And so starts the series.

Return to New Orleans

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 15 February 2021]

Yancy Derringer is a gentleman adventurer and gambler. A former Confederate Army captain who has returned to New Orleans accompanied by his Pawnee bodyguard, Pahoo-Ka-Ta-Wah.

In the opening episode Yancy has upset some men in a card game. They want revenge in blood.

On his return to his family plantation. He is surprised to find that old flame Amanda Eaton has kept his plantation going by pretending to be his wife so carpetbaggers will not get hold of it in his absence.

She blames city commissioner John Colton as one of the bad guys who is carpetbagging.

The next shock is that it is being kept as a casino as it was the only way to refurbish the plantation.

However Amanda is devious. She plans to kill Yancy and take the land. Her husband is one of the gamblers who has been after Yancy from the start of the episode.

The episode ends with the city commissioner John Colton asking Yancy to be his special agent to clean up New Orleans and move the country forward, united.

A busy and efficient first episode that establishes the main characters and sets up the series. It also has lots of action.

Yancy is putting his confederate past behind him and wanting to move forward. He is clever and resourceful, he has a gambler's heart. Just look at the way he disarmed the man pointing a gun on him by playing a bluff.

The addition of the Pawnee bodyguard also recalls the relationship between The Lone Ranger and Tonto.