Reviews

The Clara Duncan Story Apr 22, 1959 The Duke Le May Story Apr 29, 1959 The Kate Parker Story May 6, 1959 The Steve Campden Story May 13, 1959

An unusual episode, (In a series that, like Rawhide, has a lot of them), which features a young Angie Dickinson as the fiancé of an artist who went out west after getting bad reviews and is now painting some (lousy watercolors) of western subjects. One is a sexy picture of Angie, (is there any other kind?), hanging above the bar in a saloon that has been very successful because of it. Another in "Portrait of a lynching", which has been getting him some attention back east. It's also been getting him some attention out west by the rancher, (not really so) accurately depicted in the painting and his henchmen. Flint has a supporting role after Clara and the artist's father arrive to find him.

Cameron Mitchell, a very fine actor, is Duke Le May who is an escaped convict hiding with the wagon train under an assumed name. A lawman arrives looking for him and Duke wins a shoot-out but is captured. The major orders McCullough to take him to a nearby fort, which sets up a classic back-and forth situation between a (temporary) lawman and his prisoner as they travel over the prairie. Le<ay tells Flint that he grew up in a strict religious household and that he became a criminal as a rebellion against his strict father. They come across a small ranch ruled by a man, (Ed Platt) very similar to his father. He has an attractive daughter who finds Le May interesting and young son about the same age Duke was when he left home and who looks up to Le May as a man it might be exciting to be. Le May's only opposition, other than Flint, is the father. But he wins him over -temporarily - by claiming he knows how to find water on the property, (there is a terrible drought), using a divining rod. That ends when he digs in a place that appears to have no water. He tries to escape but the boy tries to stop his father from shooting Duke. The gun goes off and the boy is shot. He'll survive. Duke returns after much thought, deciding he can't leave the boy - or leave him thinking that his type of life is one to leave. Then some water bubbles up in the hole they dug. Flint declares it three miracles. I wasn't sure I liked this one until that ending, which was very affecting.

It's interesting that, in the initial confrontation, Duke is disarmed by Charley Wooster with a whip, drawing rare admiration from his wagon train mates. This is the beginning of some attempts to make Charley, who heretofore has been a clownish character, into something more substantial. One wonders if this was at the behest of Frank McGrath, who got sick of playing Charley as an idiot.

The Kate Parker story was less satisfying. It features Virginia Grey, who had played Major Adams' long-lost love in "The Major Adams Story" in season one and now returns in a different role, although no one seems to notice the resemblance. She's married to the vile Warren Stevens, who views everything in terms of dollar signs. Robert Fuller, a future regular on the show but not in this role, is a young husband who is concerned about the condition of his wife, (Ruta Lee), who is injured in a wagon accident and has to stay behind. Major Adams will send a doctor back when they encounter one. (A wagon train is like a moving town: you would think they would make sure to have a doctor along.) Grey, (she's Kate Parker), agrees to stay with them, to help her and perhaps get away from her husband. But he won't go away as long as she's got a box of cash and gold coins. He demands the box. Fuller shoots him with a one-shot derringer, which wounds his leg. Stevens fortunately doesn't kill him. But insists his wife take him away with the wagon at gunpoint, leaving Bob and Ruta to try to survive a blizzard in a small tent. It winds up with Stevens breaking through some thin ice because he is weighed down with the gold coins, (something they borrowed from Jack London's "Call of the Wild"). Kate is recused by a mountain man, Royal Dano, who has lost his Indian wife and starts falling for her. Meanwhile Bob and Ruta have survived by warming themselves in each other's arms. The theme, obviously, is that caring for each other pays off more than carrying gold across ice.

More remarkable is The Steve Campden Story. The train is stuck in a mountain pass, (so many of these second-year stories take place in the mountains), and Flint is sent to find a way through, (haven't they been there before?). He encounters a father and son pair of mountaineers. The father, (the always excellent Torin Thatcher), is a Captain Ahab type whose Moby Dick is whatever mountain that hasn't been climbed yet. He suggests Flint come with them because the best way to spot a mountain pass is from the top of the highest mountain. He agrees to go and notices that the son, Steve Jr., (the also excellent Ben Cooper, who has a fine British accent for an actor from Memphis, Tennessee), is not an enthusiastic participant. He's clearly scared of mountain-climbing, which Steve Sr. Attributes to cowardice, always comparing him unfavorably to his deceased older brother - and himself.

Faced with a blizzard, the climbers find a cave high up the mountain. In there they find, (but we do not see, except for what was an obvious prop albino mountain lion with unusually long teeth). But we heard them constantly, their noises provided rather obviously by recordings of cats meowing. But it's unnerving to the men and to the audience. Big Steve puts on his act of bluster, mocking the concern of the two younger me. But he gets injured and insists that he'll stay in the mountain as the other two go for help. Little Steve, in a confrontation gets him to admit that his brother was no paragon: he died in battle, while covering in a foxhole. His father has just used him as a cudgel to belabor his younger son - and make it look like the father is so much stronger than his son. When Flint and Little Steve get back down the mountain, make contact with the train and return to rescue Big Steve, they find him overwhelmed by fear, (his hair has turned white), and he tries to get away form them but falls into what looks like a bottomless pit. Was he deluded into thinking they were a threat to him? Was he scared of showing them how weak he had become, destroyed by the fear he wouldn't admit? The answer is at the bottom of the pit in the mountain he couldn't conquer.

The episode is hurt by the cheesy effects. A climb supposedly up the mountain is an obvious crawl across a sound stage - perpendicular to the mountains in the background. And the 'saber tooth tiger' must be seen to be disbelieved.

Incident of the Slavemaster Nov 11, 1960 Incident on the Road to Yesterday Nov 18, 1960 Incident at Superstition Prairie Dec 2, 1960 Incident at Poco Tiempo Dec 9, 1960

Rawhide's 5th ever episode is called "Incident on the Edge of Madness". In it, Gil Favor finds that his commanding officer in the Confederate Army has formed a private army of his old war buddies and wants to use it to create a kingdom in Panama. Now, in the 5th episode of season 3, (the 'Slavemaster' he encounters the former commandant of a Confederate prison camp who is still running a prison camp and won't let his prisoners go, while he lives a life of luxury. This is generally a better episode than the first one, except for two things. One is that security sees amazingly lax at the camp. Gil and Pete, guests in the house, easily climb through a window and walk all over the place, finding a mine where the prisoners work and are not caught. Secondly the prison camp commandant is played by the now-corpulent Pete Lorre, who was more threatening when he was young and skinny and kind of weird. Now he's old and dumpy and kind of pathetic. He died three years later of a stroke at age 59.

He might have wanted to be on the Road to Yesterday but that's the path of Frankie Laine, (who, of course, signs the series' theme song over the credits of each episode). He plays a former robber who, after a long time to think about it in prison, has made a legitimate financial success of himself and is now paying back the money he stole, from victim to victim. Favor was one of the victims, from a stagecoach robbery. But the final stop is hometown, where he stole $250 from the bank. He pays that back, only to find out that he's wanted for the theft of $11,000 and a murder. He's taken in but notices that a local businessman, (Chester Morris) has his name on every sign in town - and that his old girlfriend is married to the sheriff.

When Frankie signs the theme, he also cracks a whip. I've yet to see any of the drovers use a whip in any episode but it makes for a dramatic sound.

At Superstition Prairie, (where do they get these names?), Wishbone violates a taboo by attempting to save an old Indian, (Australian actor Michael Pate, who had played the Aztec in 'Incident of the Challenge', the second episode of this season), who has been left to die by his tribe. It turns out he's not as used up as they suppose: when the creek suddenly runs dry, he knows why, remembering an incident from his youth. It's a good episode about honoring the knowledge and wisdom of older people. (I'm 70 and am not used up, either.)

Poco Tiempo is the name of a town where another robbery has occurred. A man's been killed and much of the town has been destroyed by a fire the thieves started. A posse encounters Rowdy and Pete and takes them in as potential suspects. (Lucky they didn't do what the posse did in "The Ox Bow Incident" from 1943.) What the posse doesn't know is that the bandits are holding a priest hostage in the basement of a church, with two nuns covering for them lest the priest be harmed. The two nuns are Agnes Morehead and Gigi Perreau, the latter of whom has yet to take her final vows.

The bandits tell them to deliver their take via a stagecoach to another member of the gang in the next town. Also on board is the local prostitute, played by Carolyn Hughes, (who had been George C. Scott's first wife), who gets along well with the nuns despite their differences. Rowdy suspects something and joins them. Gigi falls for him and decides not to complete her vows, which makes Rowdy feel guilty. So he proposes to the prostitute to get Gigi to change her mind. Meanwhile the two bandits have killed the priest and rendezvous with their colleague, leading to a fight between Rowdy, Wishbone, (who is along for the ride), and the bad guys won by the good guys. The nuns go back to their church and Rowdy has to tell the prostitute he didn't really mean it. She walks away and the nuns ride a way in the stagecoach. Rowdy says of the lead nun that "she's quite a lady". Wishbone looks at the prostitute walking away and says "So is she." A very effective ending.

The Sister Rita Story Mar 25, 1959 The Matthew Lowry Story Apr 1, 1959 The Swift Cloud Story Apr 8, 1959 The Vincent Eaglewood Story Apr 15, 1959

In the first one, Flint comes across a wagon with three nuns in it who have come to 'serve' the Indians who are very naïve about their task, (a Priest accompanied them until he was killed). But they insist their faith will carry them through. Flint rides with them to get them to the wagon train in case prayers are not enough. Vera Miles is Sister Rita, who recently joined the order and seems to be falling for Flint. Francis Bavier, (soon to be Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show), is an older nun who gets captured by the Indians. There's a strange scene in which Rita and Flint see her after the capture and think she's dead. Flint says "I hope so", suggesting that she's been visibly tortured. But she later appears, still alive but dying as if from a heart attack but otherwise unmolested. I suspect a change in the script to a gentler demise but the editor didn't remove the brief earlier scene suggesting otherwise.

Keeping up the religious theme, Richard Anderson plays a Quaker, (Lowry) who lost an arm during the war caring for the wounded, (he got gangrene from a patient). There's always a querulous member of the train who makes trouble but none are quiet as bad as Jed Otis, (John Pickard), who wants to fight the one-armed Quaker in the very first scene because he's "sick of those 'thees and thows'. He also thinks he a rival for the affections of Dorothy Provine, playing a slutty woman Lowry has no interest in who has been flirting with him. The train has to go through a narrow canyon when they encounter a wagon where people have been stricken with cholera. It's too narrow for the train to turn around. Otis' boorish solution it to "burn them out". Lowry crosses over to help, saying that there's two kinds of cholera and this might be the kind that isn't contagious. Otis actually convinces some of the train members to join him in a mutiny. The show ends with an amazing engineering feat: they climb a cliff and hoist the wagons up to the top of the canyon, which, (turning out to be a flat movie set), allows them to mover on normally. Than why did they enter the canyon to begin with? How did their belongings stay in the wagons as they were being pulled up the sides of the canyon? If they unloaded the wagons first, how did they get the belongings up the canyon walls?

There are items in the trivia and 'goofs' about the woman who appears at the beginning, calling for help that Flint somehow misses in an early scene. It says she never reappears. Yet, she's obviously the woman we see when the train encounters the diseased wagon, who then falls for Lowry. It may be another example of bad editing: the first scene plays no role in the story and could have been cut out.

Swift Cloud (Rafael Campos, who is excellent) is the son of an Indian Chief who gets wounded in an encounter with the wagon train. Major Adams convinces that he can be cured of the resulting limp if they can take him to a doctor in Sacramento. Swift Cloud is suspicious of everyone on the train except a boy his age, (played Johnny Washhbrook of My friend Flicka). Meanwhile a group of Comancheros decide they want Swift Cloud. This week's trouble-maker is Alan Baxter as a former Confederate officer who still wears his uniform and insists on military aggression as the solution to everything.

Vincent Eaglewood is basically Mr. Peppers out west. Wally Cox plays a school teacher who joins the train and holds classes for the children, (and Charley Wooster, who enjoys a book of poetry which he can't read because he likes the pictures). Vincent gets in trouble for various scientific demonstrations that go wrong but winds up dueling with the medicine man of a local Indian tribe and winds up with the job himself.

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.

Incident of the Music Maker May 20, 1960 Incident of the Silent Web Jun 3, 1960 Incident of the Last Chance Jun 10, 1960 Incident in the Garden of Eden Jun 17, 1960

Peter Whitney was one of the best character actors on television during my youth. He could play domineering villains or big dumb guys or anything in between. The Music Maker is one of his best roles. He plays a Swiss patriarch who has brought his extended family to run a farm out west. It has failed and they are starving, (but don't look it). By trade, he's a (very) handyman who can make or fix anything. He inculcates himself into the drive as a gunsmith but makes the guns unworkable and his family comes to steal 50 head of cattle. Gil is injured and feverish and Whitney orders him taken to their farm, where he can take care of him, (he also knows medicine). But his family wants to steal the whole herd and that's a line he won't cross. One of his sons is played by Werner Klemperer, later the Colonel on 'Hogan's Heroes'.

A young girl, (Reba Waters), witnesses the murder of her father and is shocked into psychosomatic silence. Don Haggerty is an escaped convict who borrows her father's clothes and pretends o be her father as a cover. Later Haggerty and Favor confront the guy who is actually the killer, (Charles Maxwell) and the convict becomes a hero. Not a complicated plot but some good characterizations.

A young, naive couple drive their wagon across the herd and, after rescue, join the drive: they are from the east and headed for his uncle's ranch, (or was it hers?). They are played by John Kerr, (lately of South Pacific - Lt. Cable) and the Audrey Hepburn of television, Roxanne Berard, (love Audrey but I like Roxanne, too: She gets a chance to play a wider selection of characters in TV than Audrey did in the movies, as here). Roxanne doesn't show much faith in her inexperienced and unlucky husband and concludes that he is a coward - until, of course he comes through to save her from some drunken Indians. It's kind of a trifle for this series, with the drovers in the background. Also, it's not very politically correct, showing an image of alcoholic Native Americans and women who need 'taming'. Very 1950's.

The Garden of Eden features one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood history, Debra Pagett, (aided by false eyelashes and eye shadow). She's living in a mansion her father built on a ranch that has a small herd of cattle Rowdy wants to buy to replenish the herd, (he's in charge while Mr. Favor is away). The father is played by Robert Coote, (Colonel Pickering in Broadway' My Fair Lady). Debbie's sick of the west and wants to sell the herd to get enough money to go back east, (Daddy's fortune is running out). Debbie has two shocks coming: they don't even own the herd. Daddy ran out of money a long time ago and she's not the daughter of his long dead wife: her mother is the Indian servant who has been taking care of her: she's a half breed. It winds up with her standing at the edge of a cliff, contemplating ending it all while Rowdy and Daddy race to save her. At the end, she probably belongs in mental asylum, so many bad things have happened. But she merely seems tired. Still, a strong dramatic episode.

The Annie Griffith Story Feb 25, 1959 The Jasper Cato Story Mar 4, 1959 The Vivian Carter Story Mar 11, 1959 The Conchita Vasquez Story Mar 18, 1959

Annie Griffith is a 'mountain lady' waiting for her husband to come home. She finds Flint, wounded and feverish and brings him to her cabin, not knowing that he was wounded by her husband, whom in killed in self-defense. Jan Sterling, (the victim's cold wife in 1951's 'Ace in the Hole') plays her. John Dehner plays the weekly trouble maker on the train, recruiting wagon train members to follow him back east, including an interesting scene done in silhouette with Dehner and a another guy sitting in a wagon with, presumably, a camp fire somewhere behind them and Major Adams on the camera side of the wagon, listening in.

Jasper Cato is an American Inspector Javert in a story obviously inspired by Les Miserables. He's after Alan Case, (soon to be in 'The Deputy' with Henry Fonda), a reformed criminal now a crusading newspaper editor who has just rid a town of it's 'boss'. The town wants to hang Cato, who has a very uncharacteristic change of heart in the face of this. A good episode with a very unconvincing ending.

Vivian Carter is a dignified but naïve woman, (she's always reading from Robert Browning), who thinks she's out west to marry an old boyfriend she hasn't seen in a decade. This guy, (played by Patric Knowles), is already married to a dance hall girl, (the excellent Mari Aldon), and they have a plan to deprive Vivian of her money with a fake marriage. She gets crushed by this and rebuilds herself as a hard-boiled woman who's never going to fall for anyone again. Lorne Greene, (the year before Bonanza), who really loves her, tries to soften her up again. You wonder if this is a wife Ben never told us about.

The delightful Anna Maria Alberghetti plays Conchita Vasquez in a cliché-ridden story. She's with a band of Comancheros and in love with their second in command until he murders her father to become the first in command. She then falls for Flint, whom she lured into being captured by the group. She helps Flint escape and joins the wagon train but feels alienated by those who see her as 'different' and by Flints unwillingness to marry her. She then rejoins the Comancheros and helps them devise an ambush. But when Flint comes through first, she runs out to want him and is shot by her boyfriend and dies in Flint's arms. Is that a spoiler? You didn't see that coming?

The Ben Courtney Story Jan 28, 1959 The Ella Lindstrom Story Feb 4, 1959 The Last Man Feb 11, 1959 The Old Man Charvanaugh Story Feb 18, 1959

A new premise for Wagon Train episodes that opens it up for more stories in use in the first and last of these stories: Flint McCullough is detailed to guide someone who isn't going all the way to California to the location that is their goal. Another observation is that the episodes seem not to have been shown in the order they wee made as the locations referenced would not be reached in the order referenced: In both The Hunter Malloy Story, (S2 E16, 1/21/59) and The Last Man, they have reached the mountains but in The Ella Lindstrom Story, they make a visit to Dodge City. I wish they would stick to the geography: we are following the wagon train as they travel west across the country. I realize decisions are made based upon the perceived quality of the episode or the possible ratings they would get based on the star. But I perceive no pattern of that here. These are three episodes from late January to mid-February. The middle one has the biggest star. The latter one is probably the most interesting. Why move mountains by reshuffling the episodes?

The Ben Courtney Story has an interesting premise but is a bit over-wrought thanks to the over-the-top performance of Stephen McNally as a former union officer, now a lawman, who has a hatred of the confederacy because his wife and child died during the war, (he'd lived in Atlanta before it). Now he's the Sheriff in a town dominated by union sympathizers who have the same contempt for the confederacy but not on the same level as McNally. Flint is leading John Larch's family, who is from the south to a homestead near the town. He and his wife have been raising two young, orphaned boys, one white and one black. McNally concludes that they are keeping the black boy as a slave and demands that they turn the boy over to him to 'liberate' him. Hollywood to this point had bought into the 'glorious lost cause' myth in the movies but on Tv ex-confederates are often depicted as sore losers who dream of restarting the Civil War. Here it's a union man who doesn't see the war as being over. Philip Pine, like McNally a perennial bad guy, gets a good guy role as McNally's deputy who thinks he's gone too far. I like it when bad guys get to play good guys because that's what I assume the actors actually are: those that play bad guys have to be good guys, or at least good sports and let the good guys win in the end.

Bette Davis, the Queen of Warner Brothers and even Hollywood itself in the 1930's and 1940's, had already started appearing on TV before she played Ella Lindstrom but her prior appearances had been in anthology series: this was her first appearance on episodic TV. There would be two more appearances on Wagon Train, and one each on Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, the Virginian, It Takes a Thief and a number of TV movies until she finally, (briefly) because the star of a series, Hotel, in 1983. Ella Lindstrom is the mother of seven children whose husband has just died and who, herself, has a malignant tumor that will kill her as well. She has to plan, with her children, for their future. They elect to stay with the train. Other families have agreed to adopt the children and the eldest daughter is a of a marrying age and her beau, played by Robert Fuller, (who would someday replace Flint McCullough as the train's scout in the last two years of the show), has agreed to marry her and they will take care of the youngest child. The show has no real conflict, no bad guys and no violence. It also doesn't really have a plot and is really more of a character study of Ms. Ella, emphasizing her bravery, intelligence and her love and respect for her children and theirs for her. It's been properly compared to Ms. Davis's restrained performance in 1939's Dark Victory, where she portrayed a socialite with a brain tumor that suddenly makes her care-free life a very serious matter. I'd also compare it to All Mine to Give, the 1957 tear-jerker in which both the parents of a brood of children growing up on a 19th century midwestern farm die and the oldest child has to seek families that will take in his siblings. But The Ella Lindstrom Story doesn't jerk tears It plays the heavy drama rather low key, maybe a little bit too low-key. It doesn't quite have the impact it should.

The Last Man is one of the few Wagon Train episodes with a title that isn't framed by the words "The...Story." The train encounter a wild, unshaved, delirious man, (the excellent Dan Duryea), who is the last survivor of a Donner Pass-type previous wagon train. He's not sure who he is but has a diary kept by a man who said that one of the last survivors had stolen food from the starving people and was thus able to survivor the rest of them. The people on Major Adam's wagon train become angry as they read the diary. One in particular, (Judy Meredith) is incensed: her fiancé was on that train. Duryea has been asked if he is the man who did this and thinks he might be. He even grabs a gun and shoots himself. He can't be moved while recovering but the train has to get through the mountains as winter is upon them. Should they wait until he recovers or leave him behind? A powerful episode full of moral questions.

The Old Man Charvanaugh is apparently a charmer: he tries to sell people buffalo hides and entertains them with his accordion. But he has some not very entertaining sons who help him steal things from vulnerable travelers. Dorothy Green is on the train with her two young children. She wants to make a side-trip to a promised homestead, much as John Larch's family was doing in The Ben Courtney Story. Flint accompanies her and they run into Charvanaugh, (J. Carroll Naish) and his boys, who leave them unarmed and barefoot while they take their wagon away. It's an ordeal to get back to the wagon train and Major Adams and Bill Hawks find an unconscious Flint, dying of thirst. He directs them to Green and her children, who presumably recover, although we never see them again. Flint recovers and goes after the bad guys, not killing any but beating them up with the help of their next victim's family. A decade later, many westerns were cancelled in response to congressional demands to limit violence on TV. They would have loved Wagon Train, which limits the violence in favor of character development. Its more about human stories than human conflict.

Incident of the Arana Sacar Apr 22, 1960 Incident of the Deserter Apr 29, 1960 Incident of the 100 Amulets May 6, 1960 Incident of the Murder Steer May 13, 1960 (On the disc '100 Amulets' is shown before 'Deserter')

'Arana Sacar' translates from Spanish roughly as "calling the spider out". I'm not sure what that ahs to with the story. The drovers are on edge, not having a town to blow off steam in for weeks. Chris Alcaide rides out with a jug of whisky and invites them to his town. They rebel against Mr. Favor and follow him. Favor and Rowdy go after them. Then Alcaide's henchmen show up and overpower the rest, then move the herd to a place where a skinner is paying for them just to remove their hides. (Is that more profitable than to just sell the herd to meat processors). As a side plot, Alcaide, (a good looking, deep voiced actor who would have made an excellent good guy if he'd gotten his own series but was struck playing bad guys), has seduced the wife, (Cloris Leachman) of the timid owner of the general store. Favor and Rowdy manage to rout the bad guys by creating a stampede. What happened to the rebellious drovers is never clear. Leachman's performance suggests she would rather have been doing something else and I don't blame her.

The 'Deserter' Is Wishbone, who decides to take a short-cut and leaves the herd, only to confront and equally stubborn wagon master on a bridge. There's a fight and Wishbone hurts his back. Mushy takes him to a local town to seek a doctor. There isn't one but a kindly lady barkeep has enough medical knowledge to get him through his recovery. They fall for each other but it turns out the wagon master has known her a lot longer than Wishbone has. In fact, she may have been using Wishbone to get the wagon master to propose to her. Wish and Mushy return to the trail drive. A lightweight change-of pace episode.

The 'Incident of the 100 Amulets' is about superstition and fanaticism. It starts with an eclipse, (we've just had one), and the uneducated drovers wonder what's happening. Favor, a little better educated, clams them down but this is a rare example foreshadowing in a TV episode. Hey-soos, who takes care of the remuda, is allowed to visit his mother. He finds the local town to be untied in fear of her. A series of events has taken place with her tangential involvement. The townspeople have decided that she must be a witch. It ends with their attempting to eradicate their fears by burning her at the stake. A small child winds up saving the day and bringing them back to their senses.

The 'Murder Steer' is a really weird one. Some new men have joined the drive and they keep getting killed, one by one, with a steer 'branded', (it looks like whitewash to me) with the word MURDER in large letters always seen near the body. Meanwhile an older man and a pretty young wife arrive, asking to travel with the drive to protect them against the 'Murder Steer'. Favor has to play detective and figure out what is going on. He does a nice job. One of the new men is played by James Franciscus, (one of my favorite TV actors - I like his retrained, intelligent style), late of "Naked City". He would also turn up on 'Wagon Train' shortly. He was going to be Dr. Kildare but a scheduling conflict forced him to drop out, (to be replaced by the very similar Richard Chamberlain so James wound up with Mr. Novak.

The Dick Richardson Story Dec 31, 1958 The Kitty Angel Story Jan 7, 1959 The Flint McCullough Story Jan 14, 1959 The Hunter Malloy Story Jan 21, 1959

I'm less than halfway through Season 2 of Wagon Train but I have already noted an upgrade from Season 1. The stories and scripts are just better so far. Hopefully, that will hold up.

John Erickson is Dick Richardson (say that three times, real quick!). He's the son of a deceased banker who was blamed when the bank went bankrupt. He went to jail for embezzlement. His father was the real embezzler but he's taking the blame to protect Dad' reputation. He's on his way to California to start over but there are people on the train who lost everything when the bank folded. The train's horses, (don't they use oxen?), have developed a fatal illness and they have to be replaced by an uninfected batch. Richardson takes the responsibility to buy the new batch but no one trusts him with the money. One of the cheated men, (Lyle Talbot) is selected to go with him but Talbot buys heard from some rustlers who in fact, stole the herd and have now stolen the wagon train's money. Richardson has to get both back lest he be blamed for it. Some additional drama comes from his wife, who is going through a difficult pregnancy.

Anne Baxter, (another performer previously known for her movies, rather than episodic TV appearances agreeing to be on this prestigious series), plays Kitty Angel, (although I thought that was the name she gave to the baby she cares for), is a woman with a past, (a rather unspecified one but I assume she was a prostitute), faces the contempt of the other women in the train. Flint McCullough finds some Shoshone Indians who have been killed by the Sioux - save for a baby. The Sioux, (according to this episode) are known for wanting to wipe out their enemies and apparently didn't find the child. Flint brings it to the wagon train with him. The women of the train refuse to take an Indian baby in. Kitty agrees to care for the child, although she's never had to do before. An old man played by Henry Hull, (in a great performance that dominates the episode), helps her - and gives several pieces of his mind to the intolerant ones. The Sioux arrive, demanding the baby so they can kill it. But something else has arrived - smallpox and the baby has it. That drives away the Sioux and the rest of the train. Even the old man is too feeble to be around the disease. She takes care of the baby herself- and comes down with smallpox herself. Both survive. She decides to leave and settle down with her baby and not worry about what other people think - which is good because when the baby clutches her veil it reveals that the smallpox has compromised the beauty that has driven her life.

The Flint McCullough Story is excellent, although I have one quibble. He rides into the town he grew up in, has some friendly acquaintances and then attacks a man, shouting "Where is he?" The story is about how 'he' is and why Flint's mood changed so quickly. Ther's a flashback to 4 years before. The Civil War is on and Flint, having been born in Virginia, even though he was raised out west, wants to join the Confederacy. Everett Sloane is a Confederate Colonel coming through two looking for volunteers Quint has a girlfriend, the daughter of a devote Mormon who is against war and is willing to help anyone who needs it. Flint enlists with Sloane's regiment but they don't go east to fight in the big battles. They stay out west and go after things of monetary value "for the confederacy. Flint starts to become disillusioned and then is appalled when he captures a Union soldier in a small battle and Sloane orders the prisoner killed. Then comes the ultimate atrocity: The Mormon family has taken in a wounded Union Soldier and Sloane orders their home burned with them in it. We move back to the 'present' time and the man Flint has attacked is the Colonel's second in command, now out of uniform. 'He' is the colonel against whom Flint has vowed revenge - except that he finds, as the Colonel approaches him, he thinks for the a final reckoning, that the Colonel is now a stumbling, vacant man who likely wouldn't know what Flint was taking revenge for. Flint returns to the train, leaving his past behind. My one quibble is that I would think the flashback would be a longer period of time back - the four years of the war and perhaps and equal amount of time afterwards during which Flint would become a renowned wagon train scout.

Hunter Malloy is a dubious character who has joined the train to steal, especially from a young couple, (Troy Donahue and Luana Patten), who want to open up a store and are carrying two wagon loads goods to be sold in it, (nothing perishable, I hope), as well as a gold-colored box that must contain something very valuable. As with The Sakae Ito Story, the box contains something very valuable to the people holding it but of no value to the thieves - a family Bible in this case. Patten reveals that she's going to California to find out who killed her father, who went out there for the gold rush. Them an excited man announces that he's found gold. The men of the train desert it and being searching for more gold and setting up claims with Malloy finding and defending the best one. It's folly - they are just finding a few rocks and digging for more will require much time and expense and the train has to get across the mountains before winter comes. If the men stays there, they won't survive the winter. Major Adams eventually succeeds in convincing most of them of that. It ends with Malloy having a gun battle with a former partner win which they are both killed, but not before Malloy reveals who killed Patten's father. I found it strange that gold would be found in small rocks and boulders that littered the landscape. Don't you have to dig for it?

Incident at Sulphur Creek Mar 11, 1960 Incident of the Champagne Bottles Mar 18, 1960 Incident of the Stargazer Apr 1, 1960 Incident of the Dancing Death Apr 8, 1960

This was a group of weird but not uninteresting episodes with little to do with a trail drive.

The incident at Sulfur Creek is an encounter with horse thieves who steal from Favor's drive and also the local Indians. The head thief, (John Dehner), is a rancher who is christening his baby son and wants any retribution or deal-making to be postponed until afterward. The drovers are reluctantly agreeable but the Indians are not. The 'soap opera' aspects of this episode stem from the fact that his wife is in lover with his brother, who actually led the raids and sacrifices himself to save the rest. (Was that Sheb Wooley's 'Private Wilhelm' scream?). This is by far the most normal of these four episodes.

The drovers see a wagon coming toward their camp very very slowly with a man out front, carefully leading the way. The lead guy, (Lane Bradford, being given a more substantial role than he normally gets), asks for directions to a ford where they will be meeting someone. They have been traveling east and the ford is south, so they really don't seem to know where they are going. The other 'they' are Patricia Berry, who carries a shotgun and Hugh Marlowe who seems to be in charge, (but isn't). They ask to stay with the camp, on nice level ground, for the night. What are they doing? They say they are transporting champagne bottles. That's all they say. It turns out that some of the bottles contain nitro glycerin, which Wishbone, Mushy and a couple of the drovers find out when they want to try the champagne. Favor orders his men to get the herd far away so that an explosion won't cause a stampede. When they leave, Berry points her shotgun and orders Favor and Rowdy Yates to accompany them to the ford, where the people who will buy the nitro, which they've stolen from the army), from them will be waiting. Favor and Yates are to join Bradford in clearing the way. The episode is obviously inspired by the 1953 French Classic, "The Wages of Fear" but is a very tepid version of that film. At one point they encounter a large rock and try to guide the wagon over it with great difficulty when it looks as if they could just have gone around it.

In The Stargazer, Pete Nolan is scouting for the drive and observes a very nervous woman, (Dorothy Green) getting off a stagecoach in the middle of nowhere. She says she's waiting for her husband to meet her. But then faints. Pete takes her to the ranch they own. It turns out that he's been released from a mental institution. Her husband, (Richard Webb, who ironically 'Captain Midnight') is a noted astronomer and he is preparing to sell their ranch, with the help of his foreman, (Buddy Ebsen). One problem: Green insists that Webb is not her husband. Webb tells Pete about her mental problems and he leaves to rejoin the herd. But what if she's right? Pete and Wishbone come up with a cockamamie plan to have Wishbone pose as an astronomer to force Webb to use his observatory and thus prove he's a real astronomer. They only prove that Wishbone isn't one. Webb turns out to be a student of the now deceased ex-husband. (Why would they assume he knew nothing about astronomy?) Ebsen is the one really behind the whole thing and the good guys manage to get the better of him in the end.

The Dancing Death is about Gypsies. Representations of native Americans and Gypsies in these old western shows make me cringe because, while I know little about each I'm pretty certain they are consistently inauthentic and cliche-ridden. Here a gypsy, (played by, of all people, Warren Oates), steals Favor's horse and the horse later saunters back into camp with the gypsy lying dead over him, a knife in the back. The local Gypsy queen, played surprisingly well by Mabel Albertson, who usually plays modern matrons, such as Darrin's mother on Bewitched - here's she's the witch, vowing revenge unless the murderer of her son is presented to them for punishment. Anthony Caruso plays a nervous drover who is also a Gypsy with a death threat against him for a previous incident. He wants Favor's protection. Albertson puts on a carnival but makes a speech predicting a series of misfortunes the drive will face if they don't produce the killer. Then things happen that could be what she was referring to.

The Sakae Ito Story Dec 3, 1958 The Tent City Story Dec 10, 1958 The Beauty Jamison Story Dec 17, 1958 The Mary Ellen Thomas Story Dec 24, 1958

Major Adams has plenty of diversity on his wagon train: Scots in 'The Annie MacGregor Story' (Feb 5, 1958); Irish in 'The Liam Fitzmorgan Story' (Oct 28, 1958) and now the Japanese in 'The Sakae Ito Story'. This is the best of those three. The great Sessue Hayakawa, which had just been nominated for an Oscar the previous year for 'Bridge on the River Kwai' plays a Japanese Samurai who accompanied his master to America on a diplomatic mission, only to have him die. He is now carrying the ashes back to the Emperor in Japan, for some reason in a single wagon rather than a stagecoach or the new railroads or with a military escort. Adams invites them to join the train as they are going through Commanche territory. They become friendly and compare notes on American and Japan, about which the Major doesn't know much.

Along on the train are James Griffith as a sailor who's been to Japan, (no explanation as to why he's on a wagon train) and some buddies, including the flint-eyed Jack Lambert. Griffith thinks that the golden box Ito obviously treasures so much must be full of gold or jewels and they plot to get a hold of it. They convince him that they know a quicker route to California than the Major does and they should split off from the train to use it. They kill Ito's assistant and take the box. Ito goes after them in full samurai gear. The thieves find the contents of the box worthless, cracking open the pot to find what is, (to them), worthless dust. It's his katana vs. Their guns until the Commanche show up. Their chief orders the bad guys to drop their guns and hands them tomahawks. You can picture the result.

Major Adams arrives to find a living Ito and the dead bodies of the thieves. But Ito has failed to bring the ashes back and, to his and the Commanche's amazement, Ito commits harakiri. Before this, he has had a brief conversation with the Commanche chief and earned his respect, which is interesting since the native Americans originally came to this hemisphere from Asia. They may have seen something in common between them. The chief resolves to honor Ito's body in the Commanche way after he dies. A very strong episode.

In the Tent City Story, we see the relationship between Major Adams and Flint McCullough gets (temporarily) severed. They are going through Indian territory, (aren't they always?) but the Major has an agreement with the local chief that they can go through it safely so long as they don't shoot any of the game, which the tribe needs to survive. One guy shoots a buffalo, (although the animal in the clip is an African water buffalo). Adams orders it buried, even though the train is running out of food, and puts the guy in chains, with considerable anger. McCullough confronts him on this and they both lose their tempers and Flint decides to leave the train.

Now he needs another job. He arrives at a tent city set up by Wayne Morris to get the local miner's gold from them through gambling. Flint saves him from an attack from Slim Pickens, who has lost all his money at the gaming tables. Morris offers him a job as a peace officer. He takes it, providing that he can check all the games for honesty. They pass the test and Flint takes the job. But Pickens shoots a deer to feed his family and the Indians see him. He gets back to the Tent City where Flint puts him in their makeshift jail. Adams and the train show up to find that Flint has Pickens in jail and refuses to give him up to the chief. Flint realizes he's put himself in the same situation as the Major. Really that's the proper climax but they had to add on an improbable challenge wrestling match between Flint and the chief to see who wins the situation.

The Beauty Jamison story is a product of the 50's. Virginia Mayo plays the daughter of a powerful rancher who has dominated everyone else in the territory to build an empire. He's dead and she's trying to fill his shoes but they aren't very comfortable. She overdoes it at times and yet doubts herself and seems bitter that she's in this situation, especially when a range war starts. Men keep vying for the job of foreman and maybe husband but she doesn't trust any of them, except small rancher Russell Johnson, (the Professor on Gilligan's Island), who really loves her. Flint finds the body of her former foreman and bring him in. Virginia thinks he might be foreman material but he, (an old friend of Johnson's), sides with the small ranchers. Victoria Barkley of 'The Big Valley' would have knowm how to handle the situation.

The Mary Ellen Thomas Story is the best episode to date of this series, probably the best of the entire run, (I'm going through it chronologically, so that judgement will have to wait), and a contender for the best episode of any series, (my choice to date: Route 66: 'The Mud Nest'). Patty McCormick, who had become a star in 1956's "The Bad Seed", playing a murderous child, which she had also played on Broadway. She was also the first actress to play Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker", on Playhouse 90 in 1957, before it became a Broadway play and then the 1962 movie, (both of which were done by Patty Duke). She was nominated for an Academy Award for The Bad Seed and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at age 15 in 1960. She also got typecast, for at time, anyway as a naughty girl and Mary Ellen Thomas is one, always getting into pranks and fights and rebelling against authority, trusting no one. She has one friend, an angelic but sickly girl of the same age, Sally Mayhew, played by Jenny Hecht, (the daughter of Ben Hecht, author of many plays and screen plays, including 'The Front Page' and 'Stagecoach'). They don't see each other as good or evil, just friends and Mary Ellen does things like stealing sugar to make a cough syrup for Sally. Meanwhile Sally proves she can be naughty, too, putting a mouse in a silly woman's soup, for which Mary Ellen, naturally gets blamed. Nobody is perfectly good or perfectly bad.

Unless it's Mary Ellen's father who just regards her as a burden. They could have used some more backstory on this but there's no mother present. When the major complains about his daughter one too many times, the father hog ties her. When the major finds out about it, he orders her freed. Mary Ellen runs away and the father, sick of the Major's lectures says "You can take care of her" and leaves the train.

Sally's health begins to fail and the Major decides to have an early Christmas celebration. Mary Ellen saves the son of local Indian chief, who has a broken leg. As a reward, she asks for some snow from the nearby mountains to take back and show to Sally, who has never seen it. The episode ends with Flint McCullough singing 'Silent Night', (Robert Horton was an excellent singer whose real dream was to sing in stage musicals). As he does so, poor Sally breathes her last, leaving not a dry eye in the house - or the living room. In the last scene we see Sally's parents riding forward in their wagon - with Mary Ellen sitting between them.

And the tears flow again when you read this in the Trivia section: "A sad sub note to this episode, the young actress who played the part of the dying Sally Mayhew (Jenny Hecht), passed away in 1971 from a drug overdose." She was 27 years old. Her gravestone is inscribed: "Where was she stolen from the world, and all the world left without an elfin bugle blowing, without a breath of Eden stirring except on my daughter's face-newly born?" BH (Ben Hecht, father).

Rawhide Season 2 Disc 5 Incident of the Tinker's Dam Feb 5, 1960 Incident of the Night Horse Feb 19, 1960 Incident of the Sharpshooter Feb 26, 1960 Incident of the Dust Flower Mar 4, 1960

The writer of the Incident of the Tinker's Dam didn't give one about whether his script made much sense. Regis Toomey is brought in to play Wishbone's twin brother, (they look similar in the eyes but Toomey's face is rounder. They partially obscure that by giving him a scruffy beard like Paul Brinnegar's. Toomey was 19 years older.), about whom Wish has been bragging for years. He turns out to be a nere-do-well that Wishbone has to apologize for. Among other things, he's a tinker - a really bad one, who has everyone form housewives to Indians mad at him because of the low quality of his work. In a bizarre 'twist' ending, it turns out he's an Army captain working undercover and the hero Wishbone always said he was. Too bad it's hardly credible.

The Night Horse is a wild stallion a Mustanger, 'Jed Varst', (played by George D. Wallace - those middle initials sure do come in handy), has always dreamed of catching. He's also an old foe of Gil Favor's, one who was responsible for the death of Gil's friend and who beat Gil nearly to an inch of his life when the young man sought revenge. Carst and his men control a vital mountain pass Favor needs to send his herd through. Favor swallows his pride and asks Carst to allow them through - and gets rudely turned down. But when the subject of the stallion comes up, Favor suggests that his men could help Carst capture the horse. It winds up with a second fight between Favor and Carst which Carst survives but the capture of the horse, which he does not survive. A tight, tense episode.

The Sharpshooter is Jock Mahoney, who normally plays good guys, (including The Dan Hogam Story on Wagon Train). He plays a ruthless outlaw pretending to be a lawyer who has been killed by the Indians in order to hide out form posses and set up a bank job in the next town. He's a real charmer when he's not shooting people in the back, something Rowdy Yates gets blamed for when the bank is robbed and Rowdy goes to see what the shot was about. The summary says Gil Favor does some detective work to save him. In fact, Gil blunders into the incriminating evidence and when he does, Mahoney surrenders rather meekly. I expected a big fight or gun battle. Not here.

Incident of the Dust Flower is a rather unmemorable episode where the drive encounters an Irishman (Arthur Shields), who wants his daughter, (Margaret Phillips) to get married. She's embarrassed to be an 'old maid' and gets Pete Nolan, (Sheb Wolley), to pretend to be her fiancé - until she meets a nice young man, (Tom Drake) running a general store whose wife has died and they fall for each other. Nolan frees her, (and himself) from the situation by staging an argument, with Pete pretending to be drunk. Drake intervenes and Pete pretends to be angry and leaves town. That, believe it or not, is it.

The Liam Fitzmorgan Story Oct 28, 1958 The Doctor Willoughby Story Nov 5, 1958 The Bije Wilcox Story Nov 19, 1958 The Millie Davis Story Nov 26, 1958

So many American TV shows have done episodes on the 'troubles' in Ireland, (even Hawaii Five-0). Here Cliff Roberston plays an Irish rebel of the 1860's who has been assigned to find and kill a doctor who informed on their group, resulting in several executions, who has fled to America with his pretty daughter. They've wound up on Major Adams' wagon train and so Robertson joined it, where he finds some other Irish Immigrants and has a brogue contest with them throughout the episode. Rhys Williams, who plays the doctor, is Welch. The beautiful Audrey Dalton, who plays his daughter, is authentic - Dublin born. Terence de Marney, who plays a trouble-making opportunist, is from London, (where he tragically died when he fell under a subway train in 1971). David Leland, his drinking buddy, is from Colorado. Cliff was born in LA but does pretty well. Naturally, he falls for the naive Dalton, who can't believe that her father could be an informer. Cliff is still determined to so his job. De Marney solves the problem by shooting Cliff and a stabbing Williams, who uses his doctor skill to save Cliff's life before dying of his own wound in a highly melodramatic ending.

One of my favorite Gunsmoke episodes is "Sam McTavish, MD." (S16E4 10/5/70), in which Doc Adams resents the arrival of a woman doctor in Dodge until he gets to know her and see how good she is at their profession. The doctor is played by Vera Miles and they grow very found of each other. Then an epidemic hits and they work side-by-side to combat it. She comes down with the disease and he's unable to save her. Dr. Willoughby, played by the very similar Jane Wyman, has a similar experience with Seth Adams when she joins the wagon train. He comes to respect her and needs her skills and begins to fall for her. There's no epidemic but there is a problem with the Indians, who have had one of their women attacked by some jerks who put a bullet into the chief. They want to kill any whites they can find but if the doctor can save the chief, a conflict with the wagon train can be avoided. But the Indians won't let a woman cut on their chief so she has to instruct a very nervous She as to what to do. She doesn't come down with anything but tells Seth she wants to stay in the local community and serve them rather than move on to California.

Wagon Train had made a lame version of Dorothy Johnson's story 'A Man Called Horse' in it's first season. Ms. Johnson wrote the The Bije Wilcox Story for the show in the second season and it seems very much like a retelling of the same tale and this one is much better than the previous episode. This should really be called The Francis Mason Story as the is the real protagonist, played by Onslow Stevens. He's the brother of Lawrence Dobkin, (and old member of the radio Gunsmoke players), who has gone west and wound up a member and, in fact the chief of the local Indian tribe. He's now known as 'Medicine Mark'. Dobkin has come to hate whites, even though they are the people he came from, because of what they have done to his new 'brothers'. The way he was treated by his brother and father as a child is also a factor. Mason has reformed and seeks his brother's forgiveness. He has to go through a ritual depicted in the 1970 film based on 'A Man Called Horse', where strings are inserted into his breasts, (yes, men have breasts), and attached to a weight and he has to continually drag it around a maypole, in increasing agony. His ordeal ends when Medicine Mark, (urged on by Flint McCullough), stops it and hugs his brother, whom he still, underneath all his hate, love him. Bije Wilcox is Mason's eccentric guide, played by the eccentric actor Chill Wills but he's really a supporting character.

After those heavy dramatics, they must have wanted something a bit more lightweight. The Millie Davis story is about a dance hall girl, (Nancy Gates), who informally adopted a baby, the only survivor of a landslide, because she was the only female in town. The girl is now 9 years old, (or at least Evelyn Rudie was that age when she played the role). Her grandmother, a rich lady from the east, has finally traced her down and arrived in the mining town in which they live, expecting to take possession of the girl, the 'last vestige" of her deceased son. Gates wants Flint to pose as her husband, who father the child to convince the old lady that this is not her grandchild. Meanwhile, James Coburn plays a stage robber who get the idea of kidnapping the girl to make some big money.

Incident of the Druid Curse Jan 8, 1960 Incident at Red River Station Jan 15, 1960 Incident of the Devil and His Due Jan 22, 1960 Incident of the Wanted Painter Jan 29, 1960

The first one has a truly bizarre premise: An archeologist has heard rumors that Druids, (a religious cult from pre-Christian England), built a Stonehedge-like monument somewhere in Texas. (!?!) and he and one of his identical twin daughters is in search of it when they come across Mr. Favor's herd. Gil allows them to come along with them since they are going in the same direction and the daughter, (Luana Patton), is pretty. Some of the less reliable drovers, led by Claude Akins, think she's pretty, too and that causes problems which worsen when they overhear the professor, (Bryon Folger), describing the 'value' of such a monument to Favor. In Akins' simple mind, that means there must be gold there so he and his associates kidnap the professor and his daughter to force them to take them to the holy place. The arrival of the other twin turns the tide. It was entertaining enough but can you imagine being a writer and pitching this story to the producers?

The Incident at Red River Station is a smallpox epidemic Favor and a drover find a body and touch it before realizing that that was the cause of death. They go to a near bye town for a doctor, (James Dunn), but find he's being held in quarantine at the point of a gun with smallpox patients. The town boss, Robert F. Simon, (who always plays garrulous, authorization types), is treating people by bleeding them and putting pouches of herbs around their necks. He doesn't believe in the vaccinations the doctor wants to do. The drover, (Stanley Clements), points out he was vaccinated back east 8 years ago and shows a vertical scratch to prove it. But he catches the disease anyway - and dies of it, seeming to prove that Simon is right and the doctor is wrong. Favor does not catch it, even though he's not been vaccinated. The doctor says that vaccinations lose their effectiveness over 8 years and have to be redone periodically. Also, he thinks Favor may be one of those lucky people who are naturally immune to it. The theme of this episode is as relevant today as it was then - and in the 19th century.

The Devil and His Due depends on who the devil is. Favor is in search of a way across some mountains, (doesn't he know the route?) and rides to a nearby farmhouse to inquire the best way to get his herd across them when he hears a shot. A bandit group led by Neville Brand has tried to recruit a former member for a and shot him when he refused to join them. They hide and then knock out Favor, (why didn't they shoot him? Because he's got to be in the next episode!), who has his gun out. He shakes it off just as the man's wife and son arrive from town and they accuse him of shooting their husband/father. He winds up under arrest but the sheriff is dubious and lets him run his herd - but deputizes Rowdy to keep track of his whereabouts!

In another weird plot, the drovers find a dead man still riding in the saddle with several paintings made by an artist they later locate. The dead man is part of an ex-confederate guerrilla group run by a former Southern hero (Robert Lowery), apparently a combination of Forrest and Quantrill who was Favor's CO during the war. (The drovers are virtually all ex-confederates.) Lowery is in jail, scheduled to hang and the artist, (Arthur Franz), has made a painting of the village where he's being held that will allow the guerrillas to make a plan to free him. Favor takes the position that the war is over and Lowery's gang needs to turn the page. If their leader has violated the law, he needs to be punished. Not all of his men agree. Lowery's band seems kind of meek, both in numbers, (there are 5-6 of them), and in spirit, (they are rather easily persuaded to give up and file into a prison cell at the end).

Around the Horn Oct 1, 1958 The Juan Ortega Story Oct 8, 1958 The Jennifer Churchill Story Oct 15, 1958 The Tobias Jones Story Oct 22, 1958

Before they go "Around the Horn", Major Adams, Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster are doing the town in San Francisco, in fancy dress. Flint McCullough has opened to ride East. Adams, Hawks and Wooster get slipped a mickey and shanghaied (got to love the old-time language). They wind up just members of the crew on a ship commanded by William Bendix, who's first mate, (Marc Lawrence) is as evil as he looks. Unlike him, Bendix is a hard man but also has a human side. His daughter, played by 12 year old Sandy Drescher, (no apparent relation to Fran), is fascinated by Adams' stories of the west. Her governess, (Osa Massen), has come to love her and her father. Adams and the captain develop a cautious relationship based on recognizing the similarities in their position, Adams as the wagon master and Bendix as the ship's captain. But Adams' feud with Lawrence comes to a head and Lawrence winds up going over the side to a meeting with a shark, (was that the Wilhelm scream?). The ship winds up in New Orleans where the captain marries the governess, who wants him 'safe' on dry land. Adams, Hawks and Wooster wind up back in St. Joseph's Missouri, where McCullough has put together a new train, waiting for them. Then we see the captain, his new wife and child pulling up in a wagon, wanting to join the train. His wife reminds him that he won't be the boss anymore - now it's Adams' turn.

This episode has a scene from Flint's trip back where he stops in to visit Sheriff Willy Moran from the series' premiere episode the previous season. It was unheard of outside of the soaps in his era to presume that their audience had seen and remembered a character from an episode shown a year before. The producers of Wagon Train obviously had a lot of faith that their fans were watching every episode. Willy is way ahead of his time- and ours as a Sheriff. His jail is like a western version of a five star hotel. He feels that treating the prisoners "like a human being" will make it less likely that they will commit future crimes. Michael Moore would love it.

The first episode of the new trip is The Juan Ortega Story. Dean Stockwell play a young latino whose father is captured and hung, in his presence by three men. He remains silent but vows revenge. He's picked up by the wagon train and, as they proceed he finds opportunities to get it. He idolized his father but apparently didn't know him very well. The last man tells him that his father was a thief and a murderer who had killed family members of each of the men. He begs forgiveness of a priest and is then adopted by a childless couple on the train, even though he'll have to undergo a trial. Despite the drama, I didn't find it a memorable episode.

Jennifer Churchill is played by Rhonda Fleming, (not Arlene Dahl who I thought this was - they are doppelgangers). She's a 'runaway heiress' in the tradition of the old Screwball comedies of the 30's. Her father is a railroad magnate who has arranged a marriage for her. She's escaped and has wound up on the wagon train in her very own wagon, which she has no idea how to operate. She winds up with some stragglers that Major Adams sends Flint McCullough to take over. Flint plays "The Taming of the Shrew" with Jenny until he returns her to her father. Again, not a memorable episode.

The Tobias Jones Story is memorable, at least to me. Growing up, one of our local stations ran old movies from the 30's, 40's and 50's and for me and my friends in the neighborhood, the top attractions were Errol Flynn and Abbott and Costello. Both Errol and Lou Costello died of heart attacks in 1959, (and we also lost Superman, George Reeves, who shot himself that year). Lou's penultimate performance is as Tobias Jones, (he made a terrible film called "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" after this and then came the heart attack), an alcoholic ner-do-well who has sort of adopted a waif, ('Midge') played by 14 year old Beverly Washburn, (who looks more like a 10 year old). They are stow-aways on Charlie Wooster's wagon and not discovered until the train is so far from the town they were in that Major Adams agrees they can stay with the train until the next town. But Adams insists that Washburn live with a family. There's always a childless couple on the train, often with a garrulous husband and a loving wife who wants the child. In this case the husband is Morris Ankrum, a frequent, (and my favorite) Perry Mason judge. He resents the kid and looks down on Tobias, which results in her hitting the child and Tobias threatening him. Later, Ankrum's body is found with Tobias' knife in his back. He goes on trial, presided over by Major Adams. Peter Breck, a trouble-maker, doesn't even see the point of a trail. Traditionally, the leader of a lynch mob is the guy who really did it and everything points to that conclusion here. But it turns out to be somebody else, someone who says they were trying to steal Ankrum's money ($10,000!) and there was a fight - how did Ankrum wind up getting stabbed in the back? This was written by Harry Von Zell, a famous radio announcer of the 30's and 40's now best remembered for playing exactly that on the Burns and Allen TV show. Harry plays a compassionate man seeking the best situation for Midge, Tobias and everything else - we think.

Incident of the Stalking Death Nov 13, 1959 Incident of the Valley in Shadow Nov 20, 1959 Incident of the Blue Fire Dec 11, 1959 Incident at Spanish Rock Dec 18, 1959

A puma, (mountain lion) is stalking the herd. Favor has a, (rather stupid), encounter with the cat, is mounting to walk into some tall grass where, (after warning his men against this), he shoots but fails to kill it and gets mauled by the angry cat. He manages to get to his frightened horse and unwind the leash from a tree branch and partially climb on before the horse bolts. He's lucky and relieved to get back to the camp until later a coach rides up. In it is an aristocratic Spanish lady who informs Gil with contempt that the puma he's wounded has killed her son. He accuses him of cowardice for not finding the cat and killing it. Favor then feels obligated to hunt the cat down. He's joined by Cesar Romero who will allegedly help him but wishes to kill him. Wishbone's along too, because he "used to be a mountain man".

Rick Jason is back in the Valley of the Shadow, this time as a peaceful Indian chief married to a white woman, (Fay Spain) how had been captured by his tribe in the old days. Both actors suggest an Indian 'accent' by s p e a k i n g v e r y s l o w l y. It turns out there's a reward from the family of the white woman to bring her back to civilization- even those she's totally assimilated into the tribe and happy to be Jason's wife. His peacefulness is a risk in the face of this. Some drovers want to grab her and collect the reward. Disappointingly, Favor decides to "take her back to own people" because "it's the right thing to do." It's another situation a businesslike trail boss would be unlikely to get himself involved in.

The Blue Fire, on the other hand, is all about the trail drive. When a storm is imminent, the atmosphere can be so electrically charged that the cattle seem to be surrounded by some sort of neon shadow, making them nervous and ready to bolt. Favor enforces his command to minimize any sort of noise except the 'lullabyes' the drovers sing to the cattle. Meanwhile a new man in camp, (Skip Homeier), is nicknamed "Lucky". It's an ironic title, he explains, because he seems to bring nothing but bad luck.

Incident at Spanish Rock returns us to the episodes that have nothing to do with a trail drive. These guys have been on the rail for a TV season and a half, (this is the 34th episode, since they started out as a replacement series in January, 1959), and yet they still seem to be near the Mexican border. Frank De Kova, (playing 'Villegro') leads a group of alleged Juarez supporters who have turned to banditry and want to grab one of Favor's drovers, Frank Volero, who is the son of an enemy of theirs. Gil refuses. Later, they find Marie Carroyo, who has fallen off her horse. They agree to return her to the ranch of her father, Juan, (Jacques Aubuchon), also a former revolutionary. It's a trap and Pete Nolan is wounded Favor and Rowdy go after them but are also captured. Marie changes sides when Villegro killed her grandfather tortures Volero and winds up shooting Villegro. Juan joins her in the shoot-out. The most interesting thing about this on is that Marie is played by Elena Verdugo, who a decade later would play Marcus Welby's benign nurse but here is in full Mexican spitfire mode. I recall reading an interview that she had grown tired of people seeing Latino women in this way and wanted to show them a different image.

Incident at Jacob's Well Oct 16, 1959 Incident of the 13th Man Oct 23, 1959 Incident at the Buffalo Smokehouse Oct 30, 1959 Incident of the Haunted Hills Nov 6, 1959

The problem with Jacob's Well is that there's too many of them. A community has run dry and the citizens keep digging wells in hope that they can reach water. Open pits are all over the place. Favor has to keep his steers and his drovers from them. The community's leader plots to get the drive's horses from them as a means to leave the area, (their animals have died out or left on their own). His wife, (played by Patricia Medina), has gone insane but is able to distract the drovers with a sensuous dance. But she's jealous of the attention her husband gives to his adult daughter. She pushes her into a week and also Rowdy Yates when he tries to help, (in a poorly orchestrated scene). Favor and the drovers eventually get their horses back and rescue Rowdy and the daughter and, predictably, the wife, trying to escape, falls into another abandoned well and is killed. One of the stranger episodes.

The 13th Man is another episode that has nothing to do with a trail drive. Rowdy and Wishbone are shanghaied to serve on a jury trying the local dentist, (Wishbone needs a tooth removed, which is done without anesthetic or any bandaging), for murder. The prosecution's case breaks down when their only witness reneges on what he told the prosecutor. The decision seems easy. But some people on the jury are sure he's guilty just because they know this dentist who is also the local pharmacist and undertaker. He's also the town boss and the dead man was a rival. The guards issue warnings to the jurors of what will happen to them if they vote the man guilty. Eventually 11 men, including Rowdy and Wishbone get the courage to vote 'guilty'. The 12th man shakes the hand of the dentist, (the '13th man' because of his attempts to intimidate the jury) but has his own personal revenge in mind.

The credits say that Patrick MacNee of the TV 'Avengers' plays 'Henry Watkins' in this episode. Neither Macnee nor Watkins appears on the screen. MacNee was in Hollywood at this time. His autobiography mentions that he was an extra on Gunsmoke, but doesn't give the episode - maybe he meant Rawhide? I suspect he appeared in a scene that wound up on the cutting room floor.

This one opens with Wishbone, not Favor, describing the trail drive and saying that there's one indispensable man on the drive - the cook!

The Buffalo Smokehouse starts out being about the trail drive- they are trying to out-run a prairie fire and find a place to ford a stream wide enough to protect them from it. Favor arrive at a local cabin to ask where the best place to ford the stream is. He meets Vera Miles, who warns him to leave or her jealous husband, (Leif Erickson), will arrive. But first an Army detail arrives looking for a group of four bandits who robbed the local fort and killed a couple for their men. They think Favor and Erickson might have been part of the group. They convince them they aren't. They leave but here comes the bandits, led by Gene Evans. The rest of the episode is a western version of "Key Largo", with the herd somewhere, trying to find a way across the river before the fire gets them.

The Haunted Hills have more directly to do with a trail drive but it's more remarkable for two things: John Drew Barrymore completely unrecognizable as a drover who is shunned member of the local Indian tribe whose sacred grounds are in a mountain pass full of geysers and is the only source of water for miles, (do they really want that kind of water?). The fact that he's unrecognizable is a tribute to his acting ability. Then there's those geysers. They seemed too real and too expensive to have been studio re-creations but the characters ride around them and the IMDB doesn't list any location other than the studio. Favor wants to negotiate with the local tribe to use their water for his men, horses and cattle but has to deal with them and a bigoted crew sent by the government to try to force them to give up the water.

The John Wilbot Story Jun 11, 1958 The Monty Britton Story Jun 18, 1958 The Sacramento Story Jun 25, 1958

John Wilbot, (Dane Clark), may or may not be John Wilkes Booth. He looks like Booth, (to the people on the wagon train), quotes Shakespeare, especially Julius Caesar. He's a mild-mannered guy, (hardly like Booth). He points out that Booth would hardly change his name to someone so close to John Wilkes Booth, (he also would use his theatrical knowledge to make sure he didn't look like JWB). Wilbot is killed in an Indian attack. Before he dies, he's asked for his real name. He says "John", smiles and dies. Robert Vaughn plays a southern sympathizer on the train who doesn't think much of a guy who shoots someone from behind.

One odd aspect of this one is that Major Adams notes that Flint McCullough is still recovering from an Indian arrow he received in the previous episode so he can't get out and scout for the train. So he chooses to do that himself, (not Bill Hawks) and rides off. He doesn't do a very good job at it and fails to return to warn the train of the impending attack. That leaves Flint in charge of the train. Both Wagon train and Rawhide split up their stars much of the time so they could film separate episodes simultaneously and this became a Flint episode. But there hasn't been a Major Adams episode since the Dan Hogan Story on May 14th. Of course, episodes aren't shown in the order they were filmed. Maybe Ward Bond was simply owed some vacation time.

Monty Britton, (Ray Danton), is an ex-military man people think might be a deserter - or worse. The train is going through a desert and running out of water, (and animals - they've stopped and you don't see one until the final scene). Flint has found a stream but it turned out to be poisoned. His horse is dead and he almost is when he walks back to the train. Danton goes to a nearby fort for help. The commander there had gotten him dishonorably discharged for cowardice.

The first season ends in Sacramento, the train having finally reached California, (although we don't see anything of their trip over the mountains). There Flint helps out Margaret O'Brien, whose dying father had bought some farmland, only to see it swamped with mud due to hydraulic mining. He helps her get their money back from the crooked businessman who both sold them the land and did the mining. Along the way, he meets three characters he met along the trail from Missouri. These are characters from the episodes that have been presented: Cliff Grundy, (Dan Duryea, see S1 D4, 12/25/57), Dora Gray, (Linda Darnell see S1 D5, 1/29/58) and Cassie Tanner, (Marjorie Main see S1 D9 6/4/58). It was unheard of for a show of this era to have this type of continuity. This was Marjorie Main's last appearance in front of the camera before she retired.

The show ends with everyone in the train, including Major Adams selling their wagons. He's planning on returning to St. Joseph's Missouri to start up a new train. Bill Hawks and Charlies Wooster plan to accompany him. Hawks says the now unseen Mrs. Hawks will stay in California. Adams says he expects McCullough will show up in St. Joes' as well. The first episode of the second season will tell us how they get there. The show would continue this wrap-around concept for the first few seasons. Rawhide did a bit of this in their middle seasons.

The Dan Hogan Story May 14, 1958 The Ruttledge Munroe Story May 21, 1958 The Rex Montana Story May 28, 1958 The Cassie Tanner Story Jun 4, 1958

The Dan Hogan Story gives us more of the Major's backstory, although it doesn't really fit in with the Major Adams Story. Apparently, Sent Adams and Bill Hawks spent some time in New York City as boxing promoters where the met a constable (Hogan, played by Jock Mahoney) who worked without a gun and was an amateur boxers with "the fastest hands I've ever seen". Hogan is now out west, trying to make a go of it as a farmer, (or rancher, I'm not sure). The town is dominated by a bully, played by John Larch. Hogan wants to avoid violence but is drawn into it when Larch forces him to draw with him. But Dan refuses to use a gun and instead knocks Larch out with a single blow before he can draw his gun, which conveniently goes off and kills Larch. It's a good thing they were so close together. The wagon train isn't in sight and Adams, Hawks and Wooster are just bystanders in this one.

Ruttledge Monroe, (John Drew Barrymore, John's son and Drew's Daddy) is a strange gunmen with a strange story. He also has a sawed off shotgun and appears to be after someone on the train. A woman, (Mala Powers), fleeing her violent husband, thinks she's after her. Actually, he's after the Major for an old grunge when he was disciplined by him in the military service.

Rex Montana, (Forrest Tucker), is a Buffalo Bill type but a total phony who has been built up into a popular hero by writer James Dunn. Montana abuses everyone around him but remains admired by those who don't know him. He eventually challenge Seth's expertise on where the wagon train should go. They say you should be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you'll be meeting them again on the way down and Montana finds that out.

Cassie Tanner is Marjorie Main, who takes a shining to Seth, causing the wagon master to hide from her ever chance he gets. The local Indians are on the warpath. The train can avoid them if they go into the desert but their animals are too played out to survive the trek. Marjorie goes out to buy horses from a local rancher. The Indians attack, on foot in some bush-filled terrain and the train is running out of ammunition but Cassie saves the say with a 'cavalry charge' of the horses she had acquired. It's the most extended battle of the series so far.

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 Daniel Barrister Story Apr 16, 1958 The Major Adams Story: Part 1 Apr 23, 1958 The Major Adams Story: Part 2 Apr 30, 1958 The Charles Maury Story May 7, 1958

These are all good episodes. Daniel Barrister is a fiery Christian Scientist, (he's played by Charles Bickford, who is a fiery anything), who insists that that the only thing that can cure physical problems is prayer and if some one dies, it's because you allowed your belief in prayer to falter. He and his wife had a daughter, (prior to the action of this episode), who died and he blames it on his wife for not praying as hard as he did. Now she gets hurt in a wagon accident and Barrister insists that they pray for her to recover and holds off anyone with a different opinion at gunpoint. His wife asks Major Adams to get her a doctor. He sends Flint McCullough to the nearest two who finds the town is quarantined due to a smallpox epidemic! The young doctor there, played by Roger Smith, agrees to go to the Wagon Train. He's been inoculated but also takes a bath before leaving, while Flint has to remain in town for 24 hours after being inoculated.

The doctor is not only a doctor. His father was a minister and he engages in a battle of biblical quotations with Barrister, which he wins. Barrister allows him to examine his wife. He determines she has a broken rib which has penetrated some internal organs. (Was prayer going to extract the rib.) He has to operate but isn't sure if she will survive. They pray together and she does. McCullough shows up and the doctor insists that he must bathe before rejoining the train. Somehow Major Adams produces a bathtub and the last image is of Flint McCullough washing himself in a bathtub on the plains with no one in sight!

At one point in this episode, Major Adams tells his people "My job is to protect the rights of everybody here...No man has a right to condemn any other man's way of thinking. That's pretty much what the constitution says." You wonder what Ward Bond thought of this speech. He was very much in favor of the blacklisting of suspected Communists during the 1950's. I suspect he saw no contradiction because he viewed himself in opposition to a group famous for taking people's rights away in the countries they came to dominate.

The Major Adams story is important as a backstory for him, Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster and has a tear-jerking finale, a sort of western 'Camille'. There's a double flashback in volved. First we see the 'present' as Major Adams pauses the wagon train to visit the grave of his lost love, Rainie Webster. On a previous trip to California, he'd encountered her after a pre-war love affair that was broken up by his insistence that he had to continue serve the Union until the war was over. Here we find out that he first encountered Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster in the service when they were in his command and he was wounded and they rescued him. It appeared that his legs would be amputated but he refused, preferring to die whole. But he doesn't and they help in his rehabilitation, creating a life-long bond, among the three of them that paralleled the bond between Ward Bond, (irony noted), and Terry Wilson and Frank McGrath, (who play Hawks and Wooster), especially after Bond had injured his leg after being hit by a car in 1944.

In the next flashback, Rainie, (played by an appropriately skinny Virginia Grey), is going west to be with her brother's family and finds herself being romanced by an arrogant ex-Confederate Colonel played by that always intimidating bad guy, Douglas Kennedy. He climbs out of the stage and is helping Rainie out when he gets jostled by a drunk and gets in a fight with him, ending with the Colonel killing the guy with several bullets at close range, showing how ruthless he is. Major Adams is in town, this earlier wagon train nearby. He's shocked by the killing and the even more shocked to see Rainie there. He manages to re-establish his relationship with Rainie and agrees to take her to her brother's place but the Colonel tells him that he always gets what he wants. This results in the eventual violent confrontation that results in the demise of the Colonel. That would seem to create a happy ending but...Rainie has a cough that won't go away and sems to be getting worse. She knows she's dying but doesn't want Seth to know who she can just leave the train and Seth won't have to watch her die. But he finds out and she dies in his arms. Ward Bond's acting in this scene is superb. He's assuring Rainie that she will recover and that he will take her to California. He describes what a wonderful place it is, then says, "there's only one better - the place you are right now, Rainie". That's when we find out she has died. Just a great scene.

Bill Hawks wife appears in this episode for the last time and is never mentioned again. You have to wonder: did she accompany Bill on a series of treks to California? You would think they would have settled down at some point.

Charles Maury, (played by Charles Drake), is the head of 'Maury's Raiders', a Quantrill-like group that won't admit the Civil War is over and raids settlements and wagon trains to raise money to get it started again. Except the men have started to realize that that's an unlikely result and just like the idea of taking what they want for themselves. On the wagon train is a young southern woman, (Wanda Hendrix) who longs for the old times and idolizes her gallant southern heroes who defended the world she had lived in. When Maury uses a clever ruse, (they have obtained a consignment of federal uniforms), to put his gang in position to rob the train, Hendrix goes with them. She falls for Maury and he for her. But she finds the other men to be more "animals" than gallant heroes and escapes back to the train. Meanwhile the men rebel against Maury and have a new leader. They ride off, leaving Maury and one loyal man behind. Sadly, they realize the war is over, lover the Confederate flag and ride to the wagon train to surrender Maury's sword to Adams. He decides to follow the follow the example of his hero General grant and 'grant' Maury amnesty, allowing him and his man to joining the train, change their names and for Maury to continue his romance with Hendrix, both of them much the wiser.

If Maury is really like Quantrill, Major Adams wouldn't have been so generous and would not have bene the one to make such a decision about him.

Incident of the Judas Trap Jun 5, 1959 Incident in No Man's Land Jun 12, 1959 Incident of a Burst of Evil Jun 26, 1959 Incident of the Roman Candles Sep 25, 1959

These are all good episodes, although Incident of the Roman Candles isn't actually part of Season 1: it's the second episode of Season 2. I suspect it's included in the Season 1 DVDs because it was filmed for Season 1 but not shown until Season 2. Neither the DVD or the IMDB has anything to say about it.

The Judas Trap, (why Judas, I don't know). Opens with a scary segment where the herd gets attacked by a relentless pack of wolves. The drovers try to fight them off with rifles but they can't keep them away and one of them is killed. They go in search of a wolfer. This proves to be perennial bad guy Gerald Mohr, who murders women as well as wolves. He gets rid of girlfriend Phyllis Coates, (the other Lois Lane on Superman), then the sister of rancher Nina Foch and Nina herself is next. This provides Sheb Wolley with a good chance to show that he wasn't just a cowboy/singer/screamer (google 'Private Wilhelm'), and he takes good advantage of it: Coates was an old flame of his.

'No Man's Land' is an encampment of women, waiting near a prison where their husbands are being kept, for when their terms end. But some of the men, (led by Brian Keith), have had enough of waiting and break out, carrying with them a load of dynamite, (they were also working a mine of some sort). They threaten to stampede the herd with dynamite if they don't get horses. Plenty of action.

The 'Burst of Evil' is a group of Comancheros, (bandits who rob from everyone - even the Comanches), led by Hym Wynant, another perennial bad guy. They also have a group of women with them, including Linda Crystal but they are there involuntarily. Elisha Cook plays a beaten up man the drovers find, whose son has been kidnapped by the Comancheros. He leads Favor and about 20 drovers to their camp. Meanwhile Rowdy has discovered the women at their camp where Crystal has given him an elaborate mirror in return for food. He has it when he reaches a nearby town, only to find that it belonged to the sheriff's wife, who was killed in a Comanchero raid. Rather than explaining, he leaves the town at gunpoint. Back at the Comanchero camp, he is captured but not executed. They just tie him up. Wynant has planned to ambush the drovers and then steal the herd. Rowdy escapes in time to warn them. The result is on of the biggest battles any western series of the time stages- at least gunmen on each side. (I suspect it was the same twenty guys - they are never seen in the same picture. Why didn't Rowdy try to talk his way out of the situation at the town? Why didn't Wynant just shoot Rowdy? Beats me.

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.

The Marie Dupree Story Mar 19, 1958 A Man Called Horse Mar 26, 1958 The Sarah Drummond Story Apr 2, 1958 The Sally Potter Story Apr 9, 1958

The first and last of these episodes are pretty similar. An attractive woman joins the train and two men - one older, one younger both fall for her and wind up fighting over her. Major Adams is concerned that the lady involved, (the stunning Debra Paget, with blonde hair and a very 'Hollywood' make-up job as Marie Dupree and the attractive but more down to earth Vanessa Brown - except for the first scene, where she's dolled up as if for the Easter Parade - as Sally Potter), will cause him problems. Robert Lowery and Nick Adams are the rivals in the first one, Lyle Bettger and Martin Milner in the second. In both the older man unexpectedly relents and the episode comes to an abrupt ending, as if they were running out of film. Milner rides off to convince Sally not to go off with Brad Dexter and his gang, who want her to be a show girl in the salon they will set up in Virginia City. But we never see their confrontation, just a shot of Milner and Brown smiling at each other while sitting in the front of his wagon. Neither the DVD, the IMDB or James Rosin's book on the series gives any information for the 'bug on a windshield' endings of these episodes.

'A Man Called Horse' is a huge disappointment due to the absolutely flat performance of Ralph Meeker in the lead. This is a version of the Dorothy Johnson short story that a dozen years later was made is a major movie, (with two sequels) starring Richard Harris. This is a 50 minutes black and white 1950's version of the story, made with the knowledge that children will be watching. Meeker plays a Boston bank clerk who wanted to marry the boss's daughter but is refused by her father because he was a foundling with no name. He responds by going west, in search of someone to be. He gets captured by a Native American tribe, (the Crow in the Wagon Train episode, the Sioux in the movie), and is at first treated like a slave eventually is accepted and even marries a native woman who has been kind to him and fallen in love with him. She dies and her mother, who has also been kind to him is dying and was left to do so in the tribe's custom. Meeker's character, who has dubbed himself 'horse' because he felt similar to one, takes her to the wagon train for help where, (for some reason) Major Adams narrates his flash-back story, not Horse. Meeker reads his lines as if they were an initial read-through at a table and smiles wanly at Major Adams and Flint as he describes his situation. His is a very dramatic story but Meeker puts no emotion into it. And this is the same actor who dominated the screen as Mike Hammer in "Kiss Me Deadly" two years before. I get the impression his agent signed him up for this TV show and he just didn't care about it.

This disc is rescued by The Sarah Drummond Story, the finest episode yet in this series. It plays like an excellent theatrical production with strong performances, a great script and its heart being in the right place. The only weakness is that it has nothing to do with the Wagon Train, but that's OK. The last scene ties it all together in an amusing way. Flint seeks shelter from a storm at the farm of Gene Evans and the very pregnant June Lockhart. It seems that the couple should be happy a child is coming but they are anything but. It's never directly said but Lockhart was raped by a Native American while Evans was away and they don't know if the child will turn out to be his or the rapists. If it's the latter he might not be able to accept it but he knows their neighbors would definitely not due to past conflicts with the local tribe. He wants to give up the child to the tribe to care for him/her and move out to start left over again elsewhere if the child appears to be Indian. Lockart wants nothing of the sort, creating a great deal of tension. The local midwife is the wife of Evans' best friend, played by William Tallman, (on vacation from playing Hamilton Burger on Perry Mason). But Tallman has a special grudge. His father was killed by Indians and his mother so traumatized that she hasn't spoken a word since. McCullough finds himself in the middle of all this but helps these people work through their prejudices.

Incident of Fear in the Streets May 8, 1959 Incident Below the Brazos May 15, 1959 Incident of the Dry Drive May 22, 1959

Pete, (Sheb Wooley), has been gored by a steer and Favor and Rowdy go to the nearest town looking for a doctor. They find a tow being held hostage by a crazed rancher, (Gary Merrill), who wants to hang the sheriff, (Don Haggerty) and another man (Ed Nelson), whom he blames for the lynching of his son. Nelson led the mob and Haggerty failed to stop them. The thing about this is that they are all sympathetic, tragic characters, not pure "bad guys". Favor and Rowdy just want the town doctor, (Morris Ankrum), but Merrill won't let them go for fear they will bring help. The retribution Nelson gets is wonderfully ironic.

The Incident Below the Brazos is a confrontation between the drive and some angry farmers who have had violent confrontations with cattle drives in their valley in the recent past. Their leader, (Leslie Neilsen), agrees to let the herd pass through the valley if they avid the farms - and the farmers. But a horse, (not cow) stampede results in the death of a farmer and violent confrontations begin again. Martin Landau, who typically played bad guys in this era, (as in "North By Northwest", which came out this year), untypically plays Nielson's more peaceful brother.

The dry drive starts out being about a dry, (waterless) drive but ends up being about Favor's confrontation with a former trail boss, (Victor Jory), who was involuntarily retired and now has contempt for the younger men who have his old job. He's been rustling strays from passing drives to build up his own herd and owns the rights, (he says), to the only wet water source in the area. So it's going to be his men vs. Favor's and him vs. Favor - until his son and then his wife switches sides. The last shot of a defeated Jory sharing a drink with his son stays in the memory.

Three strong episodes.

The Annie MacGregor Story Feb 5, 1958 The Bill Tawnee Story Feb 12, 1958 The Mark Hanford Story Feb 26, 1958 The Bernal Sierra Story Mar 12, 1958

The Annie MacGregor Story is a cliché parade about two ethnic groups: Native Americans and Scots. Tudor Owen, (TV's version of Doanld Crisp), leads a small group of Scotsmen and women across the plains, accompanied by bagpipes to "New Scotland", (California) and is offended by anyone who tries to help them, as it implies to him that Scots cannot take care of themselves. Naturally, there's a Romeo and Juliet story as his daughter Annie, (Jeannie Carson) falls for a young man with Major Adams train, (Richard Long) who's last name is Campbell, the Campbells being sworn enemies of the MacGregors, (which is news to Long's character, born and raised in Pennsylvania). Meanwhile the Kiowas are on the warpath and waiting to ambush the train as it goes through a mountain pass, (represented by two Southern California ridges). But there's one thing the Indians are afraid of: bagpipes!

Bill Tawnee, (McDonald Carey, who doesn't look very much like a Native American but is a good enough actor to pull it off), is a famous Indian scout who served with Seth in the Civil war He's now moving west with the wagon train and his wife, (Joy Page, who played Helmut Dantine's wife in Casablanca as he tries to win enough money to get passage at the gaming tables). He just wants to settle down but the prejudice he faces from the people on the train and elsewhere has convinced him that living with whites is no longer a possibility. Naturally, he comes to the rescue of the train at the end as a gang of crooks try to rob it.

Mark Hanford, (Tom Tryon, who never played Superman but could have), starts out dressed as a white businessman who has come back from the east after a college education. But he finds out that his Indian mother has left his authoritarian rancher father and died with her people. He new hates his father (Onslow Stevens) and hates the dance hall girl, (Kathleen Crowley) he intends to marry. He kidnaps her to bring the pain to his father his mother must have felt. But then he falls for the young woman and she for him. The father kidnaps some Sioux and demands they be exchanged for his new wife. A strong and well-acted episode.

Bernal Sierra is played by Gilbert Roland and this episode is elevated by his presence, as was anything he was ever in. He plays a loyal follower of Benito Juarez who is following two thieves who stole gold from Juarez intended to purchase guns. The thieves are the beautiful wife of a friend and an American smuggler, played by 'Charlita', (actually Clara Isabella DeFreitas from Lowell, Mass) and old Warner Brothers hand Louis Jean Heydt. The ending is a big surprise concerning what's in a coffin with a clever reason why Bernal knew what wasn't in it. Roland co-wrote the script for this episode.