Four Down and Five Lives to Go

Elfego Baca (the charismatic Robert Loggia) is now Sheriff Baca of Socorro, New Mexico, assuredly tending to business while studying for the Bar Exam to become a lawyer. Baca, remembering his stretch in the very same jail, makes certain his prisoners receive good treatment before their criminal trials...such good treatment, in fact, that wanted men are walking right into his station to give themselves up! Walt Disney's take on the real-life Mexican-American gunslinger-turned-attorney isn't realistic, of course, but that's part of the series' charm. Baca goes after a former gang-member of Hispanic descent, known as the Shameless One, and receives heat from his countrymen who think him a traitor to his own people. Disney hoped to show younger viewers that being a responsible person sometimes comes with a price, and that integrity and morality are worthy personal traits since the good guy always comes out on top. Loggia (now with a tidy mustache) is in good spirits throughout, even allowing a trigger-happy prospector to go free after the old coot fires two shots through Elfego's twenty-dollar hat! The colorful presentation has held up well and, as usual, the Disney professionalism is at full-steam.