"Rawhide" episode discussion

[herofan]

I couldn't find a place to put this, so I made a thread because I'm excited that I just got season 1 of "Rawhide" on DVD and have watched the first two episodes.  Yeees!   Maybe we can use this thread to discuss episodes of "Rawhide"

[Lin Sunderland]

I couldn't find a place to put this, so I made a thread because I'm excited that I just got season 1 of "Rawhide" on DVD and have watched the first two episodes.  Yeees!   Maybe we can use this thread to discuss episodes of "Rawhide"

Sounds good to me.         I will be happy to watch season 1 again.   I am looking forward to getting season 3 vol 2.   I do hope they produce all the episodes.   They are quite slow coming out.

[herofan]

I've never had the opportunity to see but very few episodes; for some reason, they were never shown in reruns where I live, except on rare occasion.  I'm excited about watching them.  As I already mentioned in another thread, I was surprised to learn the rattlesnake gun from episode 2 was the same one he used in FFD and FFDM. 

I watched the Executioner episode last night.  I liked.  He wasn't as mysterious and scary as he probably would have been portrayed in shows today.  It was nice seeing actors that I recognized who would get bigger roles later in their career.  Which reminds me, I believe one of the prisoners from the first episode was the police and police chief from "Play Misty..." and "Dirty Harry."

[Doug]

Which reminds me, I believe one of the prisoners from the first episode was the police and police chief from "Play Misty..." and "Dirty Harry."

John Larch?

[herofan]

John Larch?

After looking it up, John Larch is correct.  I'm terrible with names, so I just have to describe people.  I spend half my time saying, "it's the guy with long hair who hit the guy in the first scene who had a big nose..............."    I guess learning names would be easier.

[herofan]

I've now watched the first five episodes, and everyone will probably think I'm crazy and quickly have me put in a mental institution like in "Changeling,"  but the format of Rawhide reminds me of the original "Star Trek."  Here is this crew on a mission, and they always run into off the wall situations, like the church in the middle of nowhere and the guy who wants to start a confederacy in Panama.  The situations even affects the guys mentally and causes them to turn against each other.  And another similarity is that if someone from their party gets killed, it's someone that you've never seen before.   Since Rawhide came first, perhaps Star Trek copied their format, or, perhaps I'm just crazy.

[KC]

I think it was quite common for dramatic TV series to have roughly that format, at least those where the premise was that the characters were on a journey from somewhere to somewhere. Basically, you had a small group of recurring actors, but the shows were mostly not about them, but about the people they encountered in their travels, and these would be played by guest stars, often movie actors trying to revive fading careers. Another show like that from around that time, but in a contemporary setting, was the two-guys-and-a-Corvette drama Route 66.

It's actually a very old literary genre ... you could trace it all the way back to Homer's Odyssey: Guy moves around, meets interesting people and encounters interesting events, interacts with them in some way, and then moves on to the next place and never hears anything about them again. In the Spanish Golden Age, they called it "picaresque" (that actually refers to a satiric subgenre where the hero is a rogue and the intent is to show up the foibles of the society he moves through). It's also familiar as a film genre; in that case, we call it the "road movie," and Clint made a few of 'em (the Which Way movies and Honkytonk Man).

[herofan]

For those who are much more familiar with "Rawhide" than I am, during what season did Clint get out of the boyish, green stage and become a full adult?   I'm assuming that happened.  Also, I am only familiar with season 1 and have some questions about the drive.  I'm assuming they experienced several different drives over the run of the show; was there ever an episode where they actually reached the end of a drive and delivered the cattle, or was the entire series just one, long, continuous drive?  Did they have different trails or was it always the same one.  I noticed that it appeared to be their first time on the Sedalia trail during season 1.

[herofan]

Bump.  Just wondering if anyone can answer my questions from my last post.

[cigar joe]

Bump.  Just wondering if anyone can answer my questions from my last post.

Yes there was one episode where they reached the end at Sedalia,  they then got their money & went their separate ways. The next episode followed Favor to Philadelphia where we met his kids. This was early in the seasons 2 or 3 at the end.

I watched it a lot as a kid but don't remember Clint as the Trail Boss or the color seasons so he may have in those.

[KC]

"The color seasons"? I thought it never went to color.

[Richard Earl]

"The color seasons"? I thought it never went to color.

It didn't.

[herofan]

So, did Rowdy ever mature a bit and become less hot headed and getting bent out of shape every time he met a woman?  In season one, it seemed like a woman could easily turn Rowdy against the others.  Did Favor ever stop viewing Rowdy as a greenhorn?

[cigar joe]

Ive been watching the new releases on DVD and so far no Rowdy is still goofy Rowdy. After Favor left the show Rowdy was trailboss  but I don't remember those either. Some place I though I read about color episodes of Rawhide I never remember seeing them though. Maybe they were contemplating doing it for a possible season 9 that's all I recall.

[The Schofield Kid]

I watched the first episode of season 1 tonight. It's the first time I've seen an episode of the series. I've only ever seen snippets before.

I really enjoyed it. I think the reason being that even though it's 50 years old, to me, it's brand new, having never seen any episodes before.

I liked seeing a couple of familiar faces in the cast that would appear in later Eastwood films. I suppose there will be a lot of spot the costars in coming episodes as well.

The only problem I now face is, do I take my time with these 22 episodes since it took three years to finally get the DVD's of season 1, & who knows how long before we get to season 2, but holding back on watching the rest may be too hard.

[higashimori]

   Finally, SK !   I hope that you liked " Rawhide " very much !   

[herofan]

I really enjoyed it. I think the reason being that even though it's 50 years old, to me, it's brand new, having never seen any episodes before.

The only problem I now face is, do I take my time with these 22 episodes since it took three years to finally get the DVD's of season 1, & who knows how long before we get to season 2, but holding back on watching the rest may be too hard.

I'm half way through season 2 and am really enjoying it.  I think the episodes get even better.  For some reason, it took me a few episodes for it to grow on me, but now I really look forward to watching an episode.  And I too haven't seen them before, so it's like a brand new show.  I think it was ahead of it's time.  Some of the writing reminds me of today's shows with all the twists and turns.  It's not one of those shows where you figure out how it will end in the first 15 minutes.

[AnecdotistOwl]

So I (FINALLY) ordered Rawhide online some days ago and got it in the mail today. I just saw the first episode and although I have to admit I had my doubts whether or not the series would be, lets say intellectually stimulating, I actually thought it was very smart played out. I'm completely in love with the scene where they have to transport the prison wagon over the stream.

And also I thought it was a very smart thing to have a great deal of focus on the prisoner characters as well, made it more colorful I think.

The only complaints I have is regarding the dvd box I bought. Now its called "Rawhide Vol. 1" (it's a swedish edition btw) and on the back of each dvd case in the box there's info of each episode and says there's three of them on each dvd (three dvds). The first thing I noticed, to my suprise was that there was 4 episodes och two of the dvds and three on the last. Now that's just lame by the publishers to fail like that (not on the "I got more episodes, yay"-part but on the info part. I want info of all of the episodes. I think that's lazy work.

But anyway, that makes a total of 11 episodes and that ought to be the first half of the first season, right? Now I'm just hoping that they will release Vol. 2 and so further because this is awesome stuff.

[antonis]

Any news about season 4?

[herofan]

Any news about season 4?

I haven't heard anything.  Amazon lists Dec. 2008 as the release date of the last vol. of season 3.  That may not be a good sign being so much time since it was released.