Incident of the Day of the Dead Sep 18, 1959
Incident of the Roman Candles Sep 25, 1959
Incident at Dangerfield Dip Oct 2, 1959
Incident of the Shambling Man Oct 9, 1959
The best episodes of this series about a trail drive are about the trail drive, IMHO. There are some very good episodes, even some great ones, that have little or nothing to do with the trail drive and I recognize that they needed to do episodes like that because you can't write so many stories and have each one be about cows. But I always find myself asking why these drovers, and especially the highly determined trail boss would allow themselves to get involved in all these other situations when it's critical that that they get the beeves to market while there still is a market and make as much money as they can for the ranch owners back in Texas who are depending on them to do exactly that. Three of these four episodes are in the "Why are they doing this?" category.
Day of the Dead features Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates - and no one else from the regular cast, which makes it a strange choice as the opening episode of the second season. Maybe they could see the big star Eastwood would become and were promoting him towards that but Eastwood at this time was as 'wet behind the ears' as the character he was playing. He is in a town and captures a runaway horse, catching the eye of a Mexican aristocrat, (played by the Swedish Vivica Lindflors), who wants him to tame their would stallion back at the ranch. Also there is her daughter, who is confined to a wheelchair for what turns out to be psychosomatic reasons. Her ranch hands want to rebel against her and got to Mexico to join Juarez. There isn't a cow in sight.
Incident of the Roman Candles was included in Disc 7 of Season 1 for some reason, (and I put my review of that disc under that episode). It's repeated on this disc. Here is what I said about it: "Richard Eyer has run away from home and is setting off fireworks, (which are not the same thing as Roman Candles. Sheb Wooley's Pete has found him and Favor assigned him to take Evers home. This produces various misadventures, fueled by Eyer's tendency to lie his way out of - or into - situations. When he gets him home, they find the place taken over by a criminal gang and it becomes hostage situation. Disappointingly they don't use the Roman Candles to get themselves out of the situation." I didn't find Eyer, the cute little kid from 'Friendly Persuasion' annoying at all, despite what someone else thought of him. He was a good actor.
Incident at Dangerfield Dip is actually about the herd. Perennial bad guy Douglas Kennedy has a good thing going. He runs a 'dip', where cattle can be cleansed of dangerous ticks. He has his brother, (Philip Pine, another perennial bad guy and a double for George Wallace), run some steers with the dangerous ticks into a herd so that the trail boss has no choice but to run his beeves through Kennedy's dip as an outrageous price. But Favor and gang capture the brother and force Kennedy to dip the herd at a more normal price - until the owner of the deceased steers, (Alan Baxter, another usual bad guy but not here), shows up and kills the brother, who had shot his wife. The drovers found the dying wife with her baby, which Wishbone winds up taking care of and becoming attached to.
The Shambling Man is Victor McLaglen, who way back in 1935 who the best Actor Oscar for 'The Informer' and way, way back in 1909 fought Jack Johnson. His son, Andrew McLaglen, (who was even bigger than his Dad at 6-7), was a prolific director of TV episodes and directed this one. Here, old Victor plays a punch-drunk ex-boxing champion who owns a ranch but occasionally loses touch with reality and begins "shambling" across the countryside, throwing punches at imagined opponents. He shambled into the trail drive and decks Rowdy Yates and then Gil Favor, who then cold-cocks him with his gun, Wyatt Earp style.
Anne Francis, half a decade before her 'Honey West' show, arrives, searching for Harry. She is his daughter-in-law, a former bar girl who married his now-dead son. She appears kind and loving on the surface but she really wants Harry to be committed so she can own and then sell the ranch. She goads him into these spells so she can have witnesses to his dementia. Now she has them. But the local town is run by a dictatorial sheriff, (Robert Lowery) who inveighs against 'sin' and considers Francis sinful, (but doesn't yet know how right he is), since she was a bar girl. He also doesn't think much of drovers and tells them so. The hearing on Harry's competence does not go well. But the sheriff's ner-do-well brother, (Gene Nelson), has a plan to make her dreams come true - for half the take. I hope everything's OK with the herd, but you can't tell from this episode.
(Victor McLaglen died a month after this episode was show of heart failure.)
The best episodes of this series about a trail drive are about the trail drive, IMHO. There are some very good episodes, even some great ones, that have little or nothing to do with the trail drive and I recognize that they needed to do episodes like that because you can't write so many stories and have each one be about cows. But I always find myself asking why these drovers, and especially the highly determined trail boss would allow themselves to get involved in all these other situations when it's critical that that they get the beeves to market while there still is a market and make as much money as they can for the ranch owners back in Texas who are depending on them to do exactly that. Three of these four episodes are in the "Why are they doing this?" category.
Day of the Dead features Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates - and no one else from the regular cast, which makes it a strange choice as the opening episode of the second season. Maybe they could see the big star Eastwood would become and were promoting him towards that but Eastwood at this time was as 'wet behind the ears' as the character he was playing. He is in a town and captures a runaway horse, catching the eye of a Mexican aristocrat, (played by the Swedish Vivica Lindflors), who wants him to tame their would stallion back at the ranch. Also there is her daughter, who is confined to a wheelchair for what turns out to be psychosomatic reasons. Her ranch hands want to rebel against her and got to Mexico to join Juarez. There isn't a cow in sight.
Incident of the Roman Candles was included in Disc 7 of Season 1 for some reason, (and I put my review of that disc under that episode). It's repeated on this disc. Here is what I said about it: "Richard Eyer has run away from home and is setting off fireworks, (which are not the same thing as Roman Candles. Sheb Wooley's Pete has found him and Favor assigned him to take Evers home. This produces various misadventures, fueled by Eyer's tendency to lie his way out of - or into - situations. When he gets him home, they find the place taken over by a criminal gang and it becomes hostage situation. Disappointingly they don't use the Roman Candles to get themselves out of the situation." I didn't find Eyer, the cute little kid from 'Friendly Persuasion' annoying at all, despite what someone else thought of him. He was a good actor.
Incident at Dangerfield Dip is actually about the herd. Perennial bad guy Douglas Kennedy has a good thing going. He runs a 'dip', where cattle can be cleansed of dangerous ticks. He has his brother, (Philip Pine, another perennial bad guy and a double for George Wallace), run some steers with the dangerous ticks into a herd so that the trail boss has no choice but to run his beeves through Kennedy's dip as an outrageous price. But Favor and gang capture the brother and force Kennedy to dip the herd at a more normal price - until the owner of the deceased steers, (Alan Baxter, another usual bad guy but not here), shows up and kills the brother, who had shot his wife. The drovers found the dying wife with her baby, which Wishbone winds up taking care of and becoming attached to.
The Shambling Man is Victor McLaglen, who way back in 1935 who the best Actor Oscar for 'The Informer' and way, way back in 1909 fought Jack Johnson. His son, Andrew McLaglen, (who was even bigger than his Dad at 6-7), was a prolific director of TV episodes and directed this one. Here, old Victor plays a punch-drunk ex-boxing champion who owns a ranch but occasionally loses touch with reality and begins "shambling" across the countryside, throwing punches at imagined opponents. He shambled into the trail drive and decks Rowdy Yates and then Gil Favor, who then cold-cocks him with his gun, Wyatt Earp style.
Anne Francis, half a decade before her 'Honey West' show, arrives, searching for Harry. She is his daughter-in-law, a former bar girl who married his now-dead son. She appears kind and loving on the surface but she really wants Harry to be committed so she can own and then sell the ranch. She goads him into these spells so she can have witnesses to his dementia. Now she has them. But the local town is run by a dictatorial sheriff, (Robert Lowery) who inveighs against 'sin' and considers Francis sinful, (but doesn't yet know how right he is), since she was a bar girl. He also doesn't think much of drovers and tells them so. The hearing on Harry's competence does not go well. But the sheriff's ner-do-well brother, (Gene Nelson), has a plan to make her dreams come true - for half the take. I hope everything's OK with the herd, but you can't tell from this episode.
(Victor McLaglen died a month after this episode was show of heart failure.)
