Labeled as refractory after the fiasco of Major Dundee, Peckinpah found himself in a difficult spot, blackballed by the studios and abruptly fired from The Cincinnati Kid after only a few days. Peckinpah retreated to his first passion—writing—turning out scripts for both film and television. Among these was his nuanced adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “Noon Wine,” which earned the approval of the notoriously difficult Porter, and Peckinpah's assignment to direct the telefilm version of this story of a farmer estranged from his community and family by his steadfast defense of a falsely accused hired hand. One of Peckinpah’s most restrained and haunting variations of his favored theme of violence as a necessary evil, Noon Wine was a success, opening the door for Peckinpah’s return to filmmaking.

Peckinpah’s earliest writing and directing jobs were for television Westerns, where he found his first success as a creator of the popular Rifleman series starring Chuck O’Connor. The series’ second episode, “The Marshal” is Peckinpah’s first collaboration with Warren Oates, who plays an early version of the seedy types that would become one of his specialties.