User Reviews

Incident at Rojo Canyon Sep 30, 1960 Incident of the Challenge Oct 14, 1960 Incident at Dragoon Crossing Oct 21, 1960 Incident of the Night Visitor Nov 4, 1960

Somehow, there's a confederate army unit that has taken over a ranch, lived off the land and is 'awaiting orders' years after the war ended. If you can buy that, it's a good episode. Meanwhile a former Confederate Colonel who was something of a legend, has joined the union army and been made a sergeant in charge of some young recruits with no battle experience. They are to protect the drive through a dangerous area, made so by raids from the neo-confederates. All three parties meet in the battle of Rojo Canyon. Songstress Julie London and her real-life husband Bobby Troup make a gracious but totally irrelevant appearance, although they attempt to tie it in by making Julie the daughter of the rancher who lost his spread to the confederates. It would be the same story without them.

The 'Challenge' is another strange plot. An Aztec, (played by and Australian actor named Michael Pate), who has walked to Texas in search of a descendent of an Aztec goddess to help his starving people. He saves Favor during a windstorm and accompanies him as he goes to a nearby town seeking access to their wells for his herd. Pate decides that a saloon girl, (Ann Robinson) is the Goddess descendant he's looking for. This angers her and the mayor of the town, (Lyle Bettger), who is secretly having an affair with Robinson to get away from his shrewish invalid wife. Meanwhile, Robinson has eyes for Favor, who gets turned down for the water by Bettger. Is that complicated enough for you?

The best Rawhide episode thus far is "Incident at Dragoon Crossing". A Feverish Favor has made a risky decision to drive the herd through some difficult country to get to a stream. He's spotted by legendary trail boss John Cord, (the excellent Dan O'Herlihy), who insists he's made a mistake but is rebuffed by Favor, who is in no mood to have his judgement questioned. Later, Favor rides to Cord's encampment and admits that he's not capable of bossing the herd in his current state. Cord's aide takes him to a local town to recover and Cord rides to the herd to take over. He finds the drovers unbelieving that Favor would give up his position. But Cord expects them to do everything he says anyway. He knows what he's doing and that becomes evident as he wins over each of them one-by-one, Rowdy being the last hold out. But there's another problem: a local gang has taken over the best ford in the stream. They had a violent encounter with Cord and his men when he drove his own herd through, (he was on his way back to Texas), that cost their leader a brother. They are out to get Cord. In the end, it's all about leadership and how you have to have someone in charge you believe in.

One thing I notice from the battles in Rojo Canyon and Dragoon Crossing is that Favor has developed a habit of not having a hat on when a battle starts. It made me wonder if that was an attempt to draw the viewer's attention to Eric Fleming as Favor, the show's star, among all the hats.

There few things a trail boss holds on tighter to than his remuda - his supply of horses. It's a long walk from Texas to Missouri and cattle pay much more attention to a man on a horse than to a man on foot. The camp gets hit by raiders that steal some of their horses. But is it Comanches or famous horse thief...err 'trader' Nick Mesa, (the wonderful Harold Stone). One of the Drovers, Jeff Barkley, (Dane Clark), is wounded - but not by the Raiders. Rather's it's by an 11 year old boy who just wanted to look at his face. He surprised Barkley, who was sleeping, and the result was a fight. Two huge coincidences: Barkley used to work for Mesa and Barkley is the kid's father, but doesn't want to deal with it.