One thing about this life o' mine that I gotta state and gotta state now is...if you consider the span between the day I was first nated and the here and now boy, have things changed. And yeah, they've changed for the worse much more'n they have for the better. True the food we eat here inna late-teens is healthier and we got loads of miracle drugs to gulp and nobody seems to get ghosts on their tee-vee screens anymore, but otherwise people are way more screwed up inna head 'n they were on that sainted day when I first took my peek at a life that might've been better lived had somebody else done it. Face it but most people seen in this world today are snippy snip sniping souls just aching to tear someone else down for totally obscure reasons and not only that but ever since the Pandora's Box o' BE WHO YOU ARE popped open most folk's cheaper, worse attributes have risen to the fore like scum in an Eyetalian bathtub. At least sickos had the good sense to be ashamed of who they were (and rightly so) back then and were more or less kept away from the prying eyes of little children who may have wondered why Aunt Mabel never got married, but thought nothing about the bowling trophies stashed in her den amid the Daughters of Belitis pamphlets.
Tee-vee reflected the greatness of those days I spent in pre-societal care what with such total wowzers as LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and OZZIE AND HARRIET, two bonafeed classics now hated by the revisionists in charge, shining up many a boob tube during those days where it was sure greater to be a kid than it was a creep (and I don't mean Eddie Haskell..the punk of the century!). And the fact that tee-vee westerns were pocking up the pages of TV GUIDE also shown well upon the populace...after all, here was the kind of entertainment that mirrored the image of the tough guy who fought in World War II and was now entering into middle age with a wife and a buncha kids living the kind of life his parents could only dream of, and of course he too hadda be mocked for being too sexist and manly and religious, certainly not the "New Man" ideal that gave us Stephen Colbert that's for sure!
Oh yeah, back to westerns...my dad 'n uncles used to watch 'em all the time and you just couldn't escape the things unless it was Sunday morning and all that was on were shows that more or less told you to GET YOUR ASS TO CHURCH! Whether they were early-thirties crankout features, fifties-era reruns or brand spanking new efforts, they were on and they were being WATCHED!!! GUNSMOKE was a fave and so was BONANZA...dunno if you can call DANIEL BOONE a western but it was outdoors-y adventuresome enough that it coulda passed, and that's not counting the whole slew of other programs that were being aired and gobbled up by lower-mid class blue collar workers putting kids through college and trying to make ends meet doin' it out for a little cheap entertainment via an aged black and white set on its last legs. Of course the kids, once they got their high paying jobs and uppercrust houses did return the favor...they got pop a new black and white tee-vee for Christmas!
I guess you really coulda called it "era's end" when the westerns seemed to exit the network schedules en masse...after all the Golden Age of Tee-Vee which spawned these programs had pretty much lost its pounce during the mid-sixties...I'm sure some people coulda seen it comin' (after all, compare an episode of JACKIE GLEASON or MY THREE SONS from the early-sixties with one of its later counterparts...sad, hunh?) and excepting a few sparkling examples late-sixties television wasn't the same animal it used to be only a few years earlier. Also, and definitely more importantly, it was as the kinda people who were up and front for these western programs were "looked down upon" by the powers that be because well...they're blue collar and unsophisticated and a lotta 'em are ethnic types and besides metropolitan hippies have more money so let's can the hokum and pump loads of relevant and meaningful programs into the system and ooze out that guilt money like pronto! While we're at it, I think the westerns began to die out because of all that retrospective white guilt about the Indians even though hey, some of them could have been violent bastards and besides if white people settled in an area where there was no human life form (and there was plenty of it) what crime was being committed anyway? OK, so I like to root for the Indians and think they're cooler, but what did happen is nothing to damn the entire white race (or even the white settlers) over!
So like, just try finding a western today, or at least one that reflects the neat mid-amerigan grit and energy of the fifties and sixties. Yeah I've seen ads for various modern miniseries that are supposed to be factual and closer to the real spirit of what happened back then, but somehow the intensity and spirit of the late-fifties adult westerns as well as the fun kick up your feet suburban slobdom of the juvenile ones remind me of a time that perhaps was much greater than the days we now spend, what with a world that seemingly did revolve around you as a proud denizen of Ranch House USA fun 'n jamz that nobody 'cept Father Time could take away from you.
Managed to get a neat record album rack outta the deal as well as some newer vintage (talking early-eighties revival) Three Stooges wristwatches I managed to make a profit on at various local outdoor antique shows/flea markets (after all, they were early-eighties). But most of all I became the proud owner of a whole slew of tee-vee western Dee-Vee-Dees, some still sealed, and I procured 'em at a pretty nice price at that. (Passed on the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW sampler because well, it was just a collection and beside I can watch that series whenever I can and besides besides it has that episode about the new kid who gets everything he wants and tempts Opie into asking for more money from his dad and I thought the whole thing was just total slander against kids like me who got nothing---and I woulda gone to jail if I were that kid's father too!)
And as far as the westerns went, of the batch featuring titles you might read about on this blog more later than sooner I got this interesting boxed set (in metal mind you!) featuring a selection of various programs from series that are both fondly remembered and forgotten with a vengeance by the sons and daughters of the same people who once gave us such wonderment but now peddle emotionless crap. It's called THE OUTLAW TRAIL and it was put out by Timeless Video who have released some of the series here in their entirety, and for an estate sale find it sure helped me through the past summer's doldrums just about as much as some hotcha tee-vee station rip roaring the fifties and sixties coulda way back when.
From early-fifties cheapies to late-sixties NBC efforts, THE OUTLAW TRAIL is a fair enough cross section of just exactly what the whole tee-vee western genre was about, at least until the hippie generation got some money and ruined everything. There are a few glaring omissions from GUNSMOKE and HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL to THE VIRGINIAN (which Don Fellman said should be called THE COMBOVER KID), but with such biggies as BONANZA and WAGON TRAIN present I ain't complainin'. These shows really brought back memories like the time I went with my father to drop cyster off at my grandmother's for a sleepover and BONANZA was just starting (we didn't watch that 'un at our house until THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS started getting too controversial) or those nights when I'd be front and center for the guys huddling around the campfire on WAGON TRAIN...lemme tell ya I'd trade the past fifty years of living if only to experience those days of pure fun and energy once again.
The forgotten faves mostly hold up, the cheaper ones still deliver on that long-lost sense of heroism and frankly most of THE OUTLAW TRAIL consists of television perfection the kind that died out right around the time I was conscious enough to enjoy it! I think I got 'em all down here and did so more or less in chronological order, and I hope that the old people who originally owned this know that there's a somewhat younger bugger out there who loves these old shows and the attitudes they promoted to death!
LARAMIE-The people who put this sampler together pulled a boner bigger'n John Holmes when they listed Hoagy Carmichael as a star of the show...he was during the first season but was long gone by the time this particular episode first aired! Believe it or naught but none other than the December Bride herself Spring Byington had joined the cast when this 'un was tingling the cathodes, and I gotta admit she does add a sorta nice old maid dimension to this rough and tumble series that starred John Smith (not the guy who almost got his head chopped off but the TV western actor who actually killed his sister [accidentally] when he was six-years-old) and Robert Fuller whose TV career spanned quite a few decades as all of you EMERGENCY fans know.
In this hour long 'un filmed in bee-youtiful NBC color some illiterate juvenile delinquent (complete with a nice early-sixties greaser haircut) is trying to go straight like anything, only he's still bound by doody to help a couple of ne'er do wells who once rescued him, the meaner one being played by early-sixties TV/moom regular James Best. Pretty good in that tough one minute yet tender the next early-sixties tee-vee western way, and it won't make you wanna puke the way tee-vee tenderness did by the time the sensitive seventies got into gear!
The most interesting thing about this particular espissisode of LAREDO is not only does it feature longtime baddie Lee Van Cleef, but also a plot that was obviously lifted from HIGH NOON as if the writers had the opportunity to get hold of Van Cleef but wanted to redo the plot their way. It actually works swell too, so if you want to see a rehash of that famous film w/o the likes of Gary Cooper or Grace Kelly you just might want to latch onto this particular 'un and like pronto!
CIMMARON CITY-Didn't know much about this one-hour NBC western which is probably best known for launching the TV career of Dan Blocker (as...what else..."Tiny") but from what I saw it sure looked like a goodie. Not as good as some of the other series mentioned here but engrossing enough that I woulda been a weekly watcher had I only been alive when this was on (tho I was alive when it was rerun locally on Saturday afternoons). George Montgomery plays the lead in that healthy fifties western way as the mayor and leading light of the city. John Smith plays the best friend/deputy sheriff role while Audrey "Who???" Totter runs the boarding house and plays major love interest for Montgomery. This episode's got Montgomery's past catching up with him as young hothead Robert Fuller heads into town in search of a gunfight to see exactly who is fastest in the West. Expect an elongated flashback scene complete with ripples caused by a tossed stone inna water, something I hadn't seen in ages!
This 'un also really packs a really potent punch. Leslie Nielsen plays this boozed up guy who skedaddled west when it was believed that he actually died a hero rescuing boys from a burning dorm at the school he was once headmaster of. After being hired by Robert Horton to drive the wagons Nielsen discovers that his own wife (now remarried) and the son he never met are on the same train in one of those coincidences that you could only find on old tee-vee shows such as this.
Things seem to be going quite smooth-like what with Nielsen connecting with the kid (who doesn't know Pop's real identity) when one of those less-peaceful Indian tribes kidnap junior after the chief's own kid is killed by a roving band of hide-skinners. Given this particular tribe's the kind that plays for keeps it looks as if Nielsen's character just might have to do something drastic to make amends for his past cowardice and boy, does he in an ending that'll probably creep you out as much as it did me (though not as creeped out as had I seen this age 15...if I did then I probably wouldn't have been able to go to sleep for the next twenny days!).
After POLICE SQUAD became a surprise outta nowhere hit Nielsen's career was re-invented. For years he was floundering in a slew of television appearances that weren't anything special but now he was considered a rising star of screwball comedy complete with an identity which pretty much eclipsed his earlier more serious roles. But as a serious actor he could play it extremely wrenching as this performance proves. If you can, try to watch this particular WAGON TRAIN if only to prove to yourself that early television wasn't exactly the "Vast Wasteland" that snobbish intellectuals always used to tell us it was.
Dale Robertson does seem a little too clean as Jim Hardie but he acts swell enough, and he does even great in this particular episode from '60 which features none other'n Hugh Beaumont as a nice and mother-loving Jesse James who may still have an evil streak to him, but deep down just wants to turn his life around and go straight and all that stuff we've heard about bad people for age!
However, his gang is definitely a little too cutthroat for him and it's like James has to watch his back not only with Hardie (posing as a writer who wants to do an "honest" biography of James) but the gang who wants their cut (or maybe more) from a robbery which Hardie wants desperately to get back considering a Wells Fargo agent was killed in the holdup. You know how it is, like when some cop gets offed and everybody on the force is out looking for the killer while important things like cats stuck in trees go unnoticed.
I thought it odd that Beaumont, who was regularly appearing on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER at the time, would be doing double duty by guesting on this show but since both series were made by Revue I guess he could do a little extra duty here and get away with it. Too bad they couldn't've wrangled Ken Osmond in as the psycho member of the gang ready to off James at a moment's notice.
Also be on the lookout for none other than East Side Kid/Dead End Kid/Bowery Boy Bobby Jordan as the gang member who killed James in real life (but not on this episode---drat!).
In this one Hoss and Little Joe are mistaken for some hardcore killers and get jailed and then freed by mysterious forces, and as far as spending your Sunday evenings it better had been this 'stead of JUDY GARLAND or the ABC moom pitcher. One beef, a new theme song was used 'stead of the traditional "dum-dadda-dum-dadda-dum-dadda-dum-dadda-dum-duhhhh" making me wonder if this particular episode (undoubtedly PD) could be used in the set but because the theme music was still copyrighted they hadda use something else??? Sure ruins the whole downhome effect, and the guys who put this out shoulda paid to use the original because well, otherwise it's SACRILEGE!!!!
BUFFALO BILL JR.-Another one of those low budget syndication series from the mid-fifties, this has a pushing-thirty Dickie Jones playing the lead role (who I would surmise is supposed to be a teenager given the "Junior" 'n all) who with his spunky little cyster Calamity live with their gruff but lovable caregiver who runs a general store and happens to be the local judge as well. Anyway some guys keep holding up these stagecoaches and taking off with payrolls 'n stuff like that, and nobody knows that these guys are operating outta the local clothing shop until Calamity herself overhears everything in the dressing room! Works well on a Saturday afternoon as long as you pretend it's 1962, you're ten-years-old and watching it on some UHF station after the network cartoons have run their course for the day, and not only that you're gonna go out and ride your bike a bit because some slobbering gushy movie's comin' on right after and who wants to watch that!
26 MEN-Tris Coffin takes time out from portraying perennial badboys on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN to play the hero in this series. Not quite an adult western yet not in the usual shoot 'em up Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kids -styled fashion, 26 MEN plays it sorta in-between and does it good with this particular episode (which, like DRAGNET, is based on actual real-life incidents with the names changes etc. and so forth). In this 'un Coffin's assisted by a local ne'er do well who happens to know who's rustling sheep and how. This guy ain't really a bad 'un, but is kinda like a good guy who's kinda bad but still good enough to work on the side of the law so it's like you can't really loathe him even if he is kinda shady. I used to think this one was a first-run syndicated program (it sure has that kinda look) but it turns out that is was actually aired on ABC, and that must have been back in the days when the network was, like Dumont, considered so low brow in content that various television programs on the other networks and magazine articles (even TV GUIDE!) used to treat it as a weird aberration!
THE RIFLEMAN-This 'un's always been a fave the way it distills the best of late-fifties/early-sixties television's gritty intensity, deep down fambly warmth and of course loads of violence into an extremely good half hour of settle back and kick up your feet entertainment. Anyway in this 'un some old-time frontiersman heads into South Paw to challenge Luke to a contest to see who really is the baddest guy in the West, and in the process the ol' coot goes mad and ends up kidnapping Mark which of course doesn't settle well with Luke who's seen Mark kidnapped more times in one tee-vee series than the Lindberghs could possibly stand.
Given star Chuck Conner's legendary extracurricular activities (y'all know about that porno with Rock Hudson as well as some stories told me by various sources who don't even know each other) I wonder how many budding homos got their thrills watching the opening scene where Connors uses his own manhood to steady his firing weapon, the phallic rifle firing itself enough to make a few fragile minds think differently about their own identities ifyaknowaddamean. Good thing I didn't know about these things then or else my name might now be Christopher Street!
RED RYDER-The comic strip comes to life once again on this early-fifties tee-vee wonder that I never even knew existed. Features Lyle Talbot in yet another role he didn't turn down, this time as the bad guy everyone thinks is good who of course gives our hero a hard time (good hint). Little Beaver plays himself just like Mr. Ed did, and although he's no Bobby Blake he's a good enough graduate of the Tonto School of Indian Enunciation and a dad burned good sidekick that I'm sure most kids out there did NOT identify with. I mean, we all admired the grown up heroes...the young 'uns were just as annoying as the kids we went to school with! I wonder who gave these comic cretors the idea that kid sidekicks were such hotcha role models anyway!
TATE-Dunno how this 'un got stuck onna same disque which was dedicated to the more kiddie-oriented western fare, for TATE is definitely one of the harder-edged tee-vee westerns around. It really ain't that hotcha either, with David McLean lacking the steel-eyed demeanor of a top notch western hero and a script (at least judging from this particular episode) that tries to be grown up and entertaining at the same time yet just falls flat. Noted for featuring the first ever handicapped hero on tee-vee (Tate lacked the use of his left arm) but that's about it...no wonder it only lasted as a summer replacement on NBC back 1960 way!Tee-vee reflected the greatness of those days I spent in pre-societal care what with such total wowzers as LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and OZZIE AND HARRIET, two bonafeed classics now hated by the revisionists in charge, shining up many a boob tube during those days where it was sure greater to be a kid than it was a creep (and I don't mean Eddie Haskell..the punk of the century!). And the fact that tee-vee westerns were pocking up the pages of TV GUIDE also shown well upon the populace...after all, here was the kind of entertainment that mirrored the image of the tough guy who fought in World War II and was now entering into middle age with a wife and a buncha kids living the kind of life his parents could only dream of, and of course he too hadda be mocked for being too sexist and manly and religious, certainly not the "New Man" ideal that gave us Stephen Colbert that's for sure!
Oh yeah, back to westerns...my dad 'n uncles used to watch 'em all the time and you just couldn't escape the things unless it was Sunday morning and all that was on were shows that more or less told you to GET YOUR ASS TO CHURCH! Whether they were early-thirties crankout features, fifties-era reruns or brand spanking new efforts, they were on and they were being WATCHED!!! GUNSMOKE was a fave and so was BONANZA...dunno if you can call DANIEL BOONE a western but it was outdoors-y adventuresome enough that it coulda passed, and that's not counting the whole slew of other programs that were being aired and gobbled up by lower-mid class blue collar workers putting kids through college and trying to make ends meet doin' it out for a little cheap entertainment via an aged black and white set on its last legs. Of course the kids, once they got their high paying jobs and uppercrust houses did return the favor...they got pop a new black and white tee-vee for Christmas!
I guess you really coulda called it "era's end" when the westerns seemed to exit the network schedules en masse...after all the Golden Age of Tee-Vee which spawned these programs had pretty much lost its pounce during the mid-sixties...I'm sure some people coulda seen it comin' (after all, compare an episode of JACKIE GLEASON or MY THREE SONS from the early-sixties with one of its later counterparts...sad, hunh?) and excepting a few sparkling examples late-sixties television wasn't the same animal it used to be only a few years earlier. Also, and definitely more importantly, it was as the kinda people who were up and front for these western programs were "looked down upon" by the powers that be because well...they're blue collar and unsophisticated and a lotta 'em are ethnic types and besides metropolitan hippies have more money so let's can the hokum and pump loads of relevant and meaningful programs into the system and ooze out that guilt money like pronto! While we're at it, I think the westerns began to die out because of all that retrospective white guilt about the Indians even though hey, some of them could have been violent bastards and besides if white people settled in an area where there was no human life form (and there was plenty of it) what crime was being committed anyway? OK, so I like to root for the Indians and think they're cooler, but what did happen is nothing to damn the entire white race (or even the white settlers) over!
So like, just try finding a western today, or at least one that reflects the neat mid-amerigan grit and energy of the fifties and sixties. Yeah I've seen ads for various modern miniseries that are supposed to be factual and closer to the real spirit of what happened back then, but somehow the intensity and spirit of the late-fifties adult westerns as well as the fun kick up your feet suburban slobdom of the juvenile ones remind me of a time that perhaps was much greater than the days we now spend, what with a world that seemingly did revolve around you as a proud denizen of Ranch House USA fun 'n jamz that nobody 'cept Father Time could take away from you.
So last autumn cyster and I went to this estate sale in New Wilmington PA where some people were selling out the possessions of their parents who were now residing in some old folk's home. They lived in a nice fifties-styled ranch house too, one that I sure woulda liked to have lived in even if there was a huge tree in the front (woulda had it taken down) and a kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms which were a li'l too small to store all my records and comic books in. They had a nice living room which was right next to the New Wilmington High School football stadium which meant that these people sure had a good view of all those post-game fights and the whole thing reeks 1963 fun to the point where you could just feel those MR. ED original run vibes soaking up the entire room.***
Managed to get a neat record album rack outta the deal as well as some newer vintage (talking early-eighties revival) Three Stooges wristwatches I managed to make a profit on at various local outdoor antique shows/flea markets (after all, they were early-eighties). But most of all I became the proud owner of a whole slew of tee-vee western Dee-Vee-Dees, some still sealed, and I procured 'em at a pretty nice price at that. (Passed on the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW sampler because well, it was just a collection and beside I can watch that series whenever I can and besides besides it has that episode about the new kid who gets everything he wants and tempts Opie into asking for more money from his dad and I thought the whole thing was just total slander against kids like me who got nothing---and I woulda gone to jail if I were that kid's father too!)
And as far as the westerns went, of the batch featuring titles you might read about on this blog more later than sooner I got this interesting boxed set (in metal mind you!) featuring a selection of various programs from series that are both fondly remembered and forgotten with a vengeance by the sons and daughters of the same people who once gave us such wonderment but now peddle emotionless crap. It's called THE OUTLAW TRAIL and it was put out by Timeless Video who have released some of the series here in their entirety, and for an estate sale find it sure helped me through the past summer's doldrums just about as much as some hotcha tee-vee station rip roaring the fifties and sixties coulda way back when.
From early-fifties cheapies to late-sixties NBC efforts, THE OUTLAW TRAIL is a fair enough cross section of just exactly what the whole tee-vee western genre was about, at least until the hippie generation got some money and ruined everything. There are a few glaring omissions from GUNSMOKE and HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL to THE VIRGINIAN (which Don Fellman said should be called THE COMBOVER KID), but with such biggies as BONANZA and WAGON TRAIN present I ain't complainin'. These shows really brought back memories like the time I went with my father to drop cyster off at my grandmother's for a sleepover and BONANZA was just starting (we didn't watch that 'un at our house until THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS started getting too controversial) or those nights when I'd be front and center for the guys huddling around the campfire on WAGON TRAIN...lemme tell ya I'd trade the past fifty years of living if only to experience those days of pure fun and energy once again.
The forgotten faves mostly hold up, the cheaper ones still deliver on that long-lost sense of heroism and frankly most of THE OUTLAW TRAIL consists of television perfection the kind that died out right around the time I was conscious enough to enjoy it! I think I got 'em all down here and did so more or less in chronological order, and I hope that the old people who originally owned this know that there's a somewhat younger bugger out there who loves these old shows and the attitudes they promoted to death!
 |
| No, this is not a still from RUMP RANGLING ON BAREBACK MOUNTAIN! |
In this hour long 'un filmed in bee-youtiful NBC color some illiterate juvenile delinquent (complete with a nice early-sixties greaser haircut) is trying to go straight like anything, only he's still bound by doody to help a couple of ne'er do wells who once rescued him, the meaner one being played by early-sixties TV/moom regular James Best. Pretty good in that tough one minute yet tender the next early-sixties tee-vee western way, and it won't make you wanna puke the way tee-vee tenderness did by the time the sensitive seventies got into gear!
***LAREDO-A lotta these color-era tee-vee westerns tend to be too slick for my tastes, but if I can stand BONANZA I certainly can stand this. Like BONANZA, LAREDO had that comedy/drama mix that made it an ultimo surprise for anybody who'd tune in regularly, and if the beer swillin' guys who went big for the latter could sit still for the former then ya know this series HAD IT MADE! Neville Brand's the gruff but lovable Reese (he basically playing the Dan Blocker role even though he recalls too much David Johansen circa CAR 54) while Peter Brown and William Smith kinda battle it out for the other brother roles. Heading the cast is Phillip Carey as Parmalee, the head of the Texas Rangers and def. daddy figure without the chiseled features of a Lorne Greene.
The most interesting thing about this particular espissisode of LAREDO is not only does it feature longtime baddie Lee Van Cleef, but also a plot that was obviously lifted from HIGH NOON as if the writers had the opportunity to get hold of Van Cleef but wanted to redo the plot their way. It actually works swell too, so if you want to see a rehash of that famous film w/o the likes of Gary Cooper or Grace Kelly you just might want to latch onto this particular 'un and like pronto!
THE TALL MAN-I didn't have any high hopes re. this 'un after seeing the opening credits where Pat Garrett (Barry Sullivan) and Billy the Kid (Clu Galager) give each other slight smiling faces which really must've turned up the double entendre meters in households nation-wide. I guess they're still supposed to be close friends here, which they were until things got a li'l outta hand. Anyhow it turns out that my fears were well-founded if only because this series (at least judging from this particular episode where a grief stricken father of a bandit wannabe is on the hunt for Billy blaming him for his kid's demise) really didn't pack that potent early-sixties tee-vee punch. Watch out for the great GuyWilkerson as the deputy. I understand that this series was actually run in North Korea of all places and went over big with the local tuner-inners. Serves those commanists right!***
***
***WAGON TRAIN-Ward Bond was gone by the time this 1960 episode hit the tube, but that doesn't mean that WAGON TRAIN was heading into tee-vee obscurity like other shows that lost their big name stars and thus fizzed out. Far from it...the series had at least another six years to go and those Bond-less shows are just as powerful and as top notch tee-vee western as the early ones which it seems most historians (or lat least people who still like to blab about the early tee-vee days) like to remember.
This 'un also really packs a really potent punch. Leslie Nielsen plays this boozed up guy who skedaddled west when it was believed that he actually died a hero rescuing boys from a burning dorm at the school he was once headmaster of. After being hired by Robert Horton to drive the wagons Nielsen discovers that his own wife (now remarried) and the son he never met are on the same train in one of those coincidences that you could only find on old tee-vee shows such as this.
Things seem to be going quite smooth-like what with Nielsen connecting with the kid (who doesn't know Pop's real identity) when one of those less-peaceful Indian tribes kidnap junior after the chief's own kid is killed by a roving band of hide-skinners. Given this particular tribe's the kind that plays for keeps it looks as if Nielsen's character just might have to do something drastic to make amends for his past cowardice and boy, does he in an ending that'll probably creep you out as much as it did me (though not as creeped out as had I seen this age 15...if I did then I probably wouldn't have been able to go to sleep for the next twenny days!).
After POLICE SQUAD became a surprise outta nowhere hit Nielsen's career was re-invented. For years he was floundering in a slew of television appearances that weren't anything special but now he was considered a rising star of screwball comedy complete with an identity which pretty much eclipsed his earlier more serious roles. But as a serious actor he could play it extremely wrenching as this performance proves. If you can, try to watch this particular WAGON TRAIN if only to prove to yourself that early television wasn't exactly the "Vast Wasteland" that snobbish intellectuals always used to tell us it was.
***RIVERBOAT-I gotta say that I always kinda liked Darrin McGavin, perhaps because he reminds me of my father or neighbor I liked as a kid who is no longer with us and well...I still think people were of a better stock back when shows like this were first broadcast as opposed to the saplings that are sprouting up today. He played it tough on MIKE HAMMER and he was even able to portray a typical 1940s dad in A CHRISTMAS STORY a good twenny-five years later, and when he was on RIVERBOAT he played it postwar cool and burning mad even though he was no longer a private eye and was now transplanted into the Old West more or less (actually, the Mississippi River). A pre-GUNSMOKE Burt Reynolds also pops up in the episode dealing with this bigshot in the town who's trying to starve out the locals and a wedding that's being held on the boat, not to mention the fact that the groom turns out to be some guy who stabbed McGavin awhile back and has a price on his head. Great tension-packed entertainment ya got here, though I gotta say that I thought they wimped out by just having McGavin talk about the carnage that one sees in the opening and closing shots rather'n see the massive destruction which woulda cost the studio a bundle but so what!
***TALES OF WELLS FARGO-It's doggone amazing to see all of these long-ignored tee-vee series from the oft-loathed pre-hippydippy days and findin' out just how darn intense these things could be. Not really being familiar with this particular series I didn't know what I was in for, but watching TALES OF WELLS FARGO was a beaut and not just a free commercial for the famed investment firm.
Dale Robertson does seem a little too clean as Jim Hardie but he acts swell enough, and he does even great in this particular episode from '60 which features none other'n Hugh Beaumont as a nice and mother-loving Jesse James who may still have an evil streak to him, but deep down just wants to turn his life around and go straight and all that stuff we've heard about bad people for age!
However, his gang is definitely a little too cutthroat for him and it's like James has to watch his back not only with Hardie (posing as a writer who wants to do an "honest" biography of James) but the gang who wants their cut (or maybe more) from a robbery which Hardie wants desperately to get back considering a Wells Fargo agent was killed in the holdup. You know how it is, like when some cop gets offed and everybody on the force is out looking for the killer while important things like cats stuck in trees go unnoticed.
I thought it odd that Beaumont, who was regularly appearing on LEAVE IT TO BEAVER at the time, would be doing double duty by guesting on this show but since both series were made by Revue I guess he could do a little extra duty here and get away with it. Too bad they couldn't've wrangled Ken Osmond in as the psycho member of the gang ready to off James at a moment's notice.
Also be on the lookout for none other than East Side Kid/Dead End Kid/Bowery Boy Bobby Jordan as the gang member who killed James in real life (but not on this episode---drat!).
***THE DEPUTY-Henry Fonda's two-season (1959-61) western series that goes to show ya that although the guy was good in mooms he was feh in tee-vee shows such as this and THE SMITH FAMILY. Actually "feh" is the incorrect word...maybe it's the comparatively cranked out script used in this one (where Fonda fakes his own demise to get to the bottom of who it was that wanted him offed in the first place) not to mention the modernesque incidental music which only detracts from the story. Once again, this probably would work better if watched on some distant snowy UHF station in 1974 while sitting nude on a sweated up Naugahyde chair, then getting up real fast and scraping that sunburn right offya!
***RESTLESS GUN-Wasn't expecting that much from this '57-59 John Payne television series for some odd reason but this particular 'un had me fascinated like nothing since the time Peggy Lou Puchinski only pulled the shade halfway down. Royal Dano plays this jittery turd of a human being who kills his former boss for the reward moolah, only now the deceased's brother is gunnin' for him and boy is the man a'scared of his own shadow. At first you, like Payne, wanna write Dano off as just another jackoff with an IQ barely hittin' the double digits, but then his inner thoughts and feelings about life start comin' out and like, you actually start to feel sorry for him jerkitude and all. Who knows, the entire series might be worth watching as well.
***BONANZA-This show was the big daddy of 'em all 'cept for GUNSMOKE, and it ain't hard to see why given how the series had a steady mix of serious, funny, serio-funny and downright good (not to mention hideous as the show rammed into the early-seventies) episodes. The later ones you can see on the off cable channels (y'know, the episodes that got all socially conscious with Will Geer hating his daughter who gave birth to a bastard played by Michael James Wixstead) but for the best of the series it's the early years and no one can deny that.
In this one Hoss and Little Joe are mistaken for some hardcore killers and get jailed and then freed by mysterious forces, and as far as spending your Sunday evenings it better had been this 'stead of JUDY GARLAND or the ABC moom pitcher. One beef, a new theme song was used 'stead of the traditional "dum-dadda-dum-dadda-dum-dadda-dum-dadda-dum-duhhhh" making me wonder if this particular episode (undoubtedly PD) could be used in the set but because the theme music was still copyrighted they hadda use something else??? Sure ruins the whole downhome effect, and the guys who put this out shoulda paid to use the original because well, otherwise it's SACRILEGE!!!!
***THE CISCO KID-In the O Henry story he was an evil murderer, but the guy proved so popular that when he made it to tee-vee he was one of those bad guys who was kinda good, so he was a good-bad guy instead of a bad-good one and thus it was hokay to like 'im. Forget the War song...Duncan Renaldo as Cisco is really cool in his latinesque ways while Leo Carrillo as Pancho does a really good sidekick in that you don't think the guy's reformed 100% like way! It's really hard for me to believe that the guy was in his seventies when he acted in undoubtedly the biggest role of his life. Another variation on one of those Cisco plays it bad in order to get the goods on a buncha badskis plots which never fail to bore.
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THE HIGH CHAPARRAL-When I was a young 'un there was this Hot Wheels car that was called the Chaparral, and naturally every doof who got hold of it just hadda call it the High Chaparral after this series! Being one of them later-on westerns that really don't light my campfire (having run from 1967 to 1971) I wasn't expecting to like this the same way most late-sixties television didn't appeal to me, but I found it snat enough to enjoy in a Spiro Agnew silent majority sorta way. In this one the good guys (consisting of Leif Erickson, Cameron Mitchell and Mark Slade amongst others) go after some scalp hunters who are hell bent on destroying the peace treaty that was struck up with the Apaches, and for $100 a scalp at that. Kinda dastardly but hey, a hunnerd bucks ain't hay! If this is what Mr. and Mrs. Gung Ho were watching while their kids were out doin' drugs 'n all that then hooray for Mr./Mrs. if I do say so myself!***
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RANGE RIDER-A Gene Autrey production, this series was more in the youth-oriented western vein but don't you dare flip it off to watch PLAYHOUSE 90 onna other channel! It's still a pretty good hold your attention sorta affair featuring one of those kinda suspicious teaming setups which, in the Batman and Robin tradition, probably gotta whole load of snide gigglin' goin' on to even top the Lone Ranger and Tonto rumors flyin' 'round. Anyway, three robbers/murderers pose as soldiers in order to get away with their deeds and Range Rider and Dick (paging Dr. Wertham!) step in to extract a li'l revenge (one of 'em konked RR out!) only some brat from the local outpost snuck away even though he was ordered to stay put and boy did he become the proverbial wrench in the gearshaft! Sure he eventually helps Range Rider capture the hoodlums, but he's such an irritating kid I hope he got strung up for goin' AWOL, the li'l jerk!***
***ANNIE OAKLEY-I get the feeling that a whole lotta boys onna planet hated the female gender at least until they knew what kind of a purpose they have here on God's Green Earth. But I also get the feeling that if there was any female on fifties tee-vee that the boys out there in the television audience woulda made an honorary male it woulda been none other'n Annie Oakley. Gale Davis plays Oakley cool enough in these typically kiddoid tee-vee episodes. This 'un's got a typical plot 'bout a local bandit who just happens to be one of the nicer guys in town and nobody knows it though it takes Annie's skill and knowhow to uncover the dastard. Yeah I blew the whole episode for ya but so what...by the time you see it you will have forgotten everything!
***YANCY DERRINGER-The fanablas who put this package together goofed again sayin' that this show starred none other than Gene Autrey! A one-season cult fave from Desilu, this 1958-59 series actually featured Jock Mahoney as the title character, a Confederate officer returning to his home in New Orleans three years after the War Between the States trying to cope with the big changes that have gone on in the meanwhile. Judging from this particular episode (the Christmas one) there was a lot of sentimentality over the way things were before the war vs. the martial law status of then-current NO which gave the show a touching yet still raw nerve feeling. Nice performance by X Brands as the silent Indian Pahoo which is good because if they had him speak his real-life German accent might have come through.
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| Special guest star Woody Johnson |
Given star Chuck Conner's legendary extracurricular activities (y'all know about that porno with Rock Hudson as well as some stories told me by various sources who don't even know each other) I wonder how many budding homos got their thrills watching the opening scene where Connors uses his own manhood to steady his firing weapon, the phallic rifle firing itself enough to make a few fragile minds think differently about their own identities ifyaknowaddamean. Good thing I didn't know about these things then or else my name might now be Christopher Street!
***SUGARFOOT-Future Dagwood Will Hutchins stars in this late-fifties Warner Brothers series done up for ABC, playing it aw-shucks and rather smooth to everyone's advantage. Thankfully SUGARFOOT follows in that grand tradition which utilized the time-tested WB formula that made watching everything from CHEYENNE to HAWAIIAN EYE one of those cheapo fun thrill experiences you just can't get anymore. It also helps that this particular episode's one of those bad guy lookalike ones where Our Hero goes undercover as his evil twin cousin and does such a good job that when the real badski escapes from prison and rejoins the ol' gang Sugarfoot plays it so real to the point where everybody is stymied as to who is who! Y'know, looking at the 1870's through the rear view mirror of the 1950's is much more appealing that looking at 'em through the distorted lens of the 2010's!
***DEATH VALLEY DAYS-In this anthology series as they used to call 'em, David Jansen's his usual cool 'n slimy as a snake oil salesman who travels smack dab inna middle of a town trying to lay enough track to make it to city limits by midnight or forfeit their entire investment and go broke. Jansen has a solution to the problem that would really help out the folk (and wipe the smirk off the corrupt Governor's face), only he wants a cool five thou for it which it seems nobody has. Of course time is ticking away, and after meeting the Gov face-to-fece so-to-speak Jansen has a change of mind and... Well, let's just say that you're gonna get another one of those surprise endings that's gonna make you feel a li'l happier'n sitting through an espisode of any modern day drama and wonderin' just where it all went down the commode.
***FRONTIER DOCTOR-Sounds like a weird spoof (FRONTIER DENTIST, the guy who fixes all of the bad teeth on the prairie, would have been a good MAD take off!), but this low-fi show does work typical ranch house kiddie wonders. Rex Allen comes off subdued and too timid to play a Western hero, but who wouldn't want a doc like him the way he lowers fees and goes out of his way to help those in dire need. In this 'un Doc helps out a family who moved westward from Chicago and the locals (led by John Hoyt, making a rare television appearance) hate him especially after Hoyt catches the hotheaded youth of the fambly rustling a calf. And this doc is sooooo nice in each and every way...before the rustling occurred he even approached Hoyt to say that if he hired the young 'un he'd secretly pay for HALF the kid's salary! Either this guy's the most generous person on God's Green Earth, or else he volunteered for too many electroshock and lobotomy experiments to work his way through medical school.
***JUDGE ROY BEAN-When I was a teenbo the Judge Roy Bean moom with Paul Newman was big doo-doo with some people. In fact I even remember when my high stool showed it on a Friday evening as part of a series of films that was intended to keep the kids off the streets and out of trouble. Well, at least this particular choice was better than the tee-vee mooms that were usually being shown those dank nights, but I didn't attend that or any of the showings for that matter because frankly it was cheaper to stay home and clock rocks to LOVE AMERICAN STYLE. I assume that this series with none other than Uncle Joe himself Edgar Buchanan in the title role was a whole lot different than the more recent movie, but it sure looks good what with Buchanan playin' the role his ol' crotchety self as he goes and gets the best of a coupla bad boys (one played by Western star Lash LaRue) who swiped a magic Katcina Doll from a small Mexican village and held it for ransom.
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***DIAMOND JIM-A color pilot that didn't go anywhere and judging from the story presented the blasted thing deserved its sad fate. Of course they had to use the same storyline as the DEATH VALLEY DAYS episode mentioned above---maybe that 'un was goin' 'round back then just like that story about the son who murders his father's attacker only to find out that pop flipped out and thought everyone was the bad guy showed up not only in an EC horror story but ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. Still it lacks the verve vim vigor and other "v" words we're certainly looking for in our tee-vee westerns that's fo' sho'!
***COWBOY G-MEN-Here's an early tee-vee wonder starring thirties b-moom great Robert Lowrey and the guy who never could escape from Charlie Chaplin's shadow Jackie Coogan as a buncha FBI agents in western duds ridin' the backlot range at the dawn of a new entertainment era for perennial suburban slobs like us. It ain't bad either what with the two tracking down these wolf pelt thieves (one played by top notch craze-o Timothy Carey) who are out to collect a three-thou bounty on a wolf who's actually a German Shepard! Not bad considerin' how it got pegged as a kiddie type show 'n all.
***TUMBLEWEED-This 'un also only made it as far as a pilot and you can kinda see why. Richard Tretter plays Tumbleweed Jones, a guy who is supposed to be a good sorta guy but exactly what kinda good sorta guy we don't know since he's not a sheriff or bounty hunter or pimp for that matter. Just a good guy who, in this 'un, goes out to get back a wayward young 'un who joined up with a gang of Robin Hood outlaws who are led by a guy dressed up like an Old World army officer. A definite try for the adult western market but the thing just doesn't getcha like HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL could every week. Still if this 'un did go into production it woulda been a good Sunday PM filler 'round 1970 way.
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FRONTIER-ANOTHER anthology western series. this one running on ABC during the '55/'56 tee-vee season. In this goodie a pre-RIFLEMAN Chuck Connors plays a hired assassin who displays a pretty bloodthirsty streak when killing the various badboys he's assigned to knock off, grinnin' and tauntin' the whole way. The thing is, most of the locals think he's a menace but he's not doing anything that was illegal in those Wild West days and the people he offs most certainly deserve it. But that don't stop the local sheriff, played by John Hoyt (making an even rarer television appearance than Edward Andrews---that's a variation on an old Don Fellman joke) from chumming it up with Conners, getting him drunk, manipulating what he says and then using the conversation in a successful attempt to get him to the gallows for the murder of a 14-year-old kid that Connors most likely did not off. All the way I'm sticking up for Connors and really felt bad the way he was railroaded by everyone including his school marm galpal which really goes to show you that sometimes the people who produce programs like this need real help in known who the good guys (Connors) and the bad guys (Hoyt) really are. The feelbad show of the entire box set.***
***JOHNNY MOCCASAN-I wonder if this series woulda gone somewhere had the pilot not ended up in the can. Good enough if hackneyed premise regarding a young white boy raised by Indians who live near a town filled with suspicious cowpoke types who want them all dead, and the kid Johnny kinda falls for the school marm who thinks she can civilize him even though he already seems the most civilized one in the whole batch. Not bad, though I don't think it woulda worked as a series either. Look out for the future Mr. Drysdale Raymond Bailey, the omnipresent Claude Akin and even Iron Eyes Cody, the phony Indian who used to cry on tee-vee alla time.
***NIGHT RIDER-Yet another western strangeity, a 1962 pilot for a proposed anthology series called GALLAWAY HOUSE which was to have had none other than Johnny Cash as the only continuing actor. It's obvious as to why this 'un never made it to gestation what with the cheap sets, the musical number padding and the overall lethargy to be found throughout. In this episode Cash plays a traveling gunslinger who shoots local loudmouth kid Dickie Jones and feels remorse. Nothing much more'n that. I think the people responsible shoulda taken more notes from HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL or GUNSMOKE before attempting to waste a whole lotta talent on a turd like this!
***STORY OF A STAR-I thought this 'un was an actual mid-fifties tee-vee series for some reason but it turns out to have been a pilot and nothin' but. Too bad because I think this 'un coulda made it given how the acting and performance were up there with the rest of the serious series that were competing for precious western time. Victor McLaglen was the host, a strange one considering his definitely non-western accent (well, his Civil War cap helps!), who is seen at the opening making a tin star and introducing us to the story that was to have been seen, this time one about a bad/good guy who finds a dying marshal (played by Kim's dad Douglas Fowley) and takes his place when the ol' coot dies. Turns out he has a chance to prove he's a good/good guy when he rides into a small town where a buncha crooked cattlemen are planning to take their diseased cows to market before the yokels catch on. Good hotcha action in this 'un and ya kinda wonder if the network and syndication people who wouldn't buy this were a li'l tipsy at the convention because STORY OF A STAR woulda made a good passel o' tee-vee viewing had it only made it out to the general populace!
THE ADVENTURES OF RICK O'SHAY-Closing out this romp back in tee-vee western time's this yet again unsold pilot from the early-fifties which, believe it or not, had nada to do with the western comic strip with a title character of the same name which began in the latter portion of that marvelous decade. Now I can see why this didn't get past the tastemongers at the nets or even the usual syndication packagers considering its low-quality...the outdoor scenes may be fine but the inside shots come off like a stage play being filmed using leftover summer stock props. No real pull or tension on this one (not that I expect any but sometimes it helps) and my guess is that this would even snooze your typical Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kid type who'd be more'n happy to sit through a program such as this. Not quite the ending I woulda liked for this batch of shows but hey, I ain't gonna complain (that much!).***
A great survey! I'd say it brings back memories, but half of these I've probably never seen an episode of, so there are no memories to bring back.
ReplyDeleteI have the COMPLETE RUN of COWBOY G-MEN in the garage somewhere in case you'd like more. Speaking of the great Jackie Coogan, one film I'm considering reviewing some day for BTC is a Monogram "Tailspin Tommy" feature which Jackie Coogan (a supporting character) steals from the somewhat-bland stars with his virtuoso acting.
Also, Robert Lowery is for me the best-ever Batman (Lewis Wilson coming in second) in the 1949 Batman and Robin serial, with Lyle Talbot as Commissioner Gordon. Whenever they make another Batman film, I always watch this serial again to get the taste of the new one out of my mouth (and I watched it TWICE after each of the horrible Christian Bale ones, since there was a lot of horrible taste to get out of my mouth on those).