[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058855/]

[amtap amazon:asin=B000ERVJKO]

His­to­ry: “The Wild, Wild West” was a reac­tion to the spy craze in pop­u­lar cul­ture with a West­ern twist with a healthy dose of Jules Verne added. The series was an instant hit when it appeared in 1965: it did­n’t hurt that there was a cul­ture tran­si­tion tak­ing place between the fad­ing West­ern genre and the new spy craze engen­dered by the James Bond films and TV series like “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Avengers”. But it also did­n’t hurt that the two main char­ac­ters, as well as some of their re-occur­ring oppo­nents, were strong, mem­o­rable characters.

Colonel James West (Robert Con­rad) and Artemis Gor­don (Ross Mar­tin) were Secret Ser­vice agents patrolling the West in their pri­vate rail­way train on spe­cial orders from Pres­i­dent Grant. The ath­let­ic and dash­ing West (Con­rad did many of his own stunts) paired excep­tion­al­ly well with the clever and debonair Gor­don as they bat­tled insid­i­ous crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions, would-be con­querors, malev­o­lent sci­en­tif­ic genius­es and hos­tile for­eign pow­ers to pro­tect the Unit­ed States in its dif­fi­cult times after the Civ­il War.