I've been thinking a lot about "The Rifleman" lately.

It all started just before Christmas, when I walked a slightly different route after work to get to the CTA Blue Line station at Daley Center -- and I passed by the still-under-constriction Museum of Broadcast Communications near the Marina City House of Blues. I'd visited the museum many years ago when it was housed in River City and enjoyed the exhibits a great deal. (I toured the museum with Chicago sportswriter and broadcaster George Castle, who's a font of pop-cultural information.) For a time, the MBC moved to the Chicago Cultural Center, but I never stopped in when it was there.

Anyway, as I walked past the museum, I began reflecting on TV shows that had an impact on me. Sure, the original "Star Trek" fueled my imagination, and "Adam-12" briefly stirred some interest in pursuing a career in law enforcement, but the one show that caused me to seriously reflect on the human condition while still in elementary school was "The Rifleman."

The two photos above are screengrabs from the first episode's scene in which we're introduced to Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) and his son, Mark (Johnny Crawford), as they arrive in the New Mexico Territory of the 1880s. The show's haunting main theme plays in the background and, for a moment, shifts to a minor chord as Mark expresses concern and regrets in dialogue wonderfully written by Sam Peckinpah and masterfully handled by Connors and Crawford...

Lucas: Well, it's new and mighty fine country, son.

Mark turns and stares over his shoulder.

Lucas: There's no looking back -- we've come too far.

Mark: I wasn't really looking back. I was just remembering back.

Lucas: What do you say we start from here?

Mark: Fine.

Lucas: Let's go.

I like how the characters' backstories are only hinted at -- and then played out slowly in the episode and, indeed, in the series, as well. In a later scene the McCains check in at North Fork's hotel. In the lobby, they meet Vernon, a young gunslinger played by Dennis Hopper -- who'll be competing against Lucas later that day in a turkey shoot. Lucas heads upstairs to stow their bedrolls and tells Mark to go into the restaurant and "order for both of us." What's engaging about the following scene is how naturally Crawford and Hopper play their parts. It's acting done so well it doesn't seem to be acting. And the dialogue is finely crafted, as well. A lesser writer would have glopped it up with dialect, yet Peckinpah uses it sparingly.

Mark: Would you like to come and sit with me?

Vernon: Yeah, I guess I might as well.

Mark (to waitress): I'll have some of that beef stew.

Vernon: I'd like the same.

Mark: I guess you must be pretty fast with that gun.

Vernon: Well, I guess I'm just about as fast as anybody there is.

Mark: My pa, he doesn't use a pistol -- he uses a rifle, but he's pretty fast, too.

Vernon: No man with a rifle is as fast as a man with a six-gun.

Mark: My pa is. When we was living in the Nations, they used to call him "The Rifleman." He's the greatest shot in the world.

Vernon: Well, he may stand tall where you come from, kid, but he ain't shooting against no sodbusters. He's shooting against me.

Mark: You'll see. What's your name?

Vernon: My name's Vernon.

Mark: Mine's Mark McCain. Was that your pa in the lobby?

Vernon: No, he's my uncle.

Mark: My pa says I'm not old enough to carry a pistol right yet.

Vernon: I've been wearing one and shooting ever since I can remember. I must've had a gun since I was six years old.

Mark: You're lucky, Vernon.

Vernon: That's what my Uncle Wes says.

Mark: I can shoot my dad's rifle, but he won't let me carry a pistol.

Vernon: What about your ma?

Mark: She died -- a long time ago. What happened to yours?

Vernon: I never had one.

Mark: Don't it bother you, I mean, not having a ma or a pa?

Vernon: I reckon. Sometimes it bothers me considerable.

The scene is made all the effective by Herschel Burke Gilbert's gently poignant music. I especially like how Crawford delivers the line "He's the greatest shot in the world" with the genuine pride a child has for a loving parent. It reminds me of the way Billy Gray describes his mom's government job in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." He points out to Klaatu that the guy everybody calls a secretary isn't a secretary at all and that "My mom's a real secretary!"

I have to admit that while the hints of sadness and darkness Peckinpah injects into "The Rifleman" make the series -- especially its first season -- a classic for me, much of his later film work strikes me as needlessly cruel and violent. An exception is his 1972 "Junior Bonner," a star-laden (Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Ben Johnson) picture that also explores father-and-son relationships, but in a latter-day setting. A similar but more-Hollywooden treatment of this theme appears in Stuart Rosenberg's excellent "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," a 1991 production with Scott Glenn, Kate Capshaw and Ben Johnson.

SEE "THE RIFLEMAN" -- You can view this pilot episode as well as 50 others on Hulu.com.

SEE A TRIBUTE TO "THE RIFLEMAN" -- Here's a cool tribute to the show and its late star, Chuck Connors.

SEE LUCAS McCAIN IN ACTION -- Another nifty YouTube clip compiles a number of North Fork shootouts.

"THE RIFLEMAN" MEETS "THE WILD BUNCH" -- Clever fan editing shows "'The Rifleman' opening if Sam Peckinpah had been allowed to direct the way he wanted."

STEVE McQUEEN AGAIN -- And hey, what a great way to wrap this up: Steve McQueen's last film was "The Hunter", filmed on location here in Chicago. Its show-stopping stunt happens at Marina Towers, those twin-corncob highrises two doors up from the Museum of Broadcast Communications. This spectacular scene features a car crashing through the retaining wall in one of the tower's parking garages and then plowing into the Chicago River.

That scene provided the inspiration for a recent Allstate commercial.

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