The Bearcats

Starring Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole, was a TV-series from 1971 that only lasted 14 episodes. I always expected someone would do a feature-length ‘remake’ of it. Basically, it was about 2 mercenaries who traveled around the Mexico/Arizona territories in a Stutz Bearcat automoblie during the Pancho Villa-era, solving dilemmas and romancing women. It borrowed from Il Mercenario (Corbucci, '68), but not heavily. I think the car in that film was also a Stutz. Gazing at my search-screen, it looks like there definitely is a Bearcats cult-following on the net. The ‘timing’ may be just about right for an intelligent neo-SW remake…

Funny, I remember watching this! I liked the pairing of ROD TAYLOR and DENNIS COLE. The pilot “Powderkeg” witch was very good at the time, was what got me hooked on the series. To bad they canceled it.

I´ve reviewed the pilot Powderkeg (Dutch):

It co-stars Luciana Paluzzi. Haven’t seen the rest of the series, but as Powderkeg is 5/10 stuff for me, I’m not really anxious to do so.

Here’s the vhs that I have, which has better picture quality than the American dvd. Too bad they didn’t use the nice Spanish poster (title: Los dinamiteros) as a basis for the cover art. This cover pretty much sucks.

Sorry to bring up an old topic, but I still have my VHS of Powderkeg from a late 1980s ITV screening. I remember it well and even dubbed the musical score onto cassette as I enjoyed it so much.

The Tex Mex setting of the film shows a certain Spaghetti influence, but it mainly comes across as a western spin on Mission: Impossible, which was attempted again with The Barbary Coast. Interestingly that series also featured Dennis Cole, but for the series he was replaced by Doug McLure.

[quote=“Lord Brett, post:4, topic:2869”]Sorry to bring up an old topic, but I still have my VHS of Powderkeg from a late 1980s ITV screening. I remember it well and even dubbed the musical score onto cassette as I enjoyed it so much.

The Tex Mex setting of the film shows a certain Spaghetti influence, but it mainly comes across as a western spin on Mission: Impossible, which was attempted again with The Barbary Coast. Interestingly that series also featured Dennis Cole, but for the series he was replaced by Doug McLure.[/quote]

It’s always a relevant topic. I tried to watch one of their episodes The Devil Wears Armor about bank-robbers treading amok in a tank, but the phone rang and I never finished tracking it down. Yeah, the ladies still love Dennis Cole, I think.