The Guns of Will Sonnet: Complete Series (CBS MOD) (2 Viewers)

[Gary OS]

How would CBS release a Universal owned property?

Hostile takeover?

 

[jayembee]

CBS have done this before. Image put out the original Twilight Zone box set, and when the disc rights reverted back to CBS, CBS reissued the exact same discs that Image had previously made. It wasn’t worth the reauthoring costs to create new discs simply to remove an old logo.

Oddly enough, Warner did the same thing back in the day. When distribution rights to the early WB and MGM catalogs switched from MGM/UA to Warner, DVD reissues of some titles came in Warner snapper cases, but contained the exact same discs of the old MGM/UA releases, right down to the MGM/UA labels on the discs themselves.

 

[Bryan^H]

No brag, just fact.

 

[bmasters9]

Oddly enough, Warner did the same thing back in the day. When distribution rights to the early WB and MGM catalogs switched from MGM/UA to Warner, DVD reissues of some titles came in Warner snapper cases, but contained the exact same discs of the old MGM/UA releases, right down to the MGM/UA labels on the discs themselves.

And so did Shout! on Barney Miller, insofar as the first three seasons are concerned in the all-in-one-- the discs have Shout! labeling, but the content (menus and all) is the same as the originals of those first three seasons from Columbia/Tristar and SPHE.

 

[Harry-N]

I hate to be a downer, but really guys: the last eleven posts have had absolutely nothing to do with THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT. I keep getting emails that the thread has updated, and all I come to find is more posts about Peter Gunn and Lola Albright.

I can appreciate thread drift, but really - maybe start a new thread on Peter Gunn?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I hate to be a downer, but really guys: the last eleven posts have had absolutely nothing to do with THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT. I keep getting emails that the thread has updated, and all I come to find is more posts about Peter Gunn and Lola Albright.

I can appreciate thread drift, but really - maybe start a new thread on Peter Gunn?

You're right! I've moved those posts so back to "The Guns of Will Sonnet".

 

[BobO'Link]

I'm fairly certain I watched S1 of this series during its original run as it came on Friday at 8:30pm (Central time) with absolutely nothing airing opposite that I'd have been remotely interested in watching (the CBS Friday Movie, something I rarely watched, or Hollywood Squares), plus it featured Walter Brennan, a favorite actor in those years (and I still like to see him appear in movies or TV series, always enjoying his appearance/character). S2 kept that time slot for Fall/Winter and it still had no competition in which I was interested. In the Spring, however, it was absolutely out as it moved to Monday at 7:30pm running opposite Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (a "must see" series). Its other competition in the new time slot was Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show which seems to indicate that move is likely what killed it.

And I absolutely do not remember watching it at all. I *did* pick up a copy of the Timeless release a few years back but haven't yet made time for a viewing.

 

[Harry-N]

I never watched THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT at all during its primetime run on ABC. I was never any kind of western fan back then except for once in awhile staying up for GUNSMOKE with Dad. But I usually fell asleep. To me, a suburban/ city kid, guns and horses were non-relatable.

Then one day around 2009, local channel 6 in Philly had added a 6.2 digital subchannel, and on a Sunday afternoon, I caught an episode of THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT - and I liked it. So, a year or so later, I bought the Timeless set of both seasons.

I was rather disappointed with the chopped up episodes and wonky color, but watched through most of it.

This thread had given me hope of something better, but now it's probably just more of the same. Sigh....

 

[Bryan^H]

This is yet another partial "The Fugitive formula" (which I love) tv series that has something I never really cared for. The 'search for someone important to the main character never ending grind'. As seen in the TV series 'Kung Fu' it rarely pays off when that special someone is found. If at all.

Motivation for a main character to keep "searching" from town to town may seem good on paper, but I always found it to get old rather fast. Especially when watching episodes day to day, and not week to week. I especially hated when the character just missed the special someone by a day or so.

It breaks my heart this isn't remastered, and uncut. It deserves that at the very least. Original episodes are lost to time unfortunately!!

 

[Scott511]

I never had an appreciation for Westerns until 20 years ago when I was well into my 30s. I’ve haven’t seen this series, but since I never bought the Timeless set and I’ve found this discussion interesting I’ll buy this wonky color chopped up rerelease.

 

[Bryan^H]

I never had an appreciation for Westerns until 20 years ago when I was well into my 30s. I’ve haven’t seen this series, but since I never bought the Timeless set and I’ve found this discussion interesting I’ll buy this wonky color chopped up rerelease.

You might find it watchable, but for a 25-26 minute per episode cut to as low as 21 minutes (maybe less, I can't remember right now) some of the episodes are quite bad as it seems like it was a very lean show to begin with, hence the story confusion after more scenes were cut to make it incomprehensible.

 

[Neil Brock]

I checked running times on episodes I have from film and they come in at 25:42. Branded at 25:10.

 

[cineescape]

I never watched THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT at all during its primetime run on ABC. I was never any kind of western fan back then except for once in awhile staying up for GUNSMOKE with Dad. But I usually fell asleep. To me, a suburban/ city kid, guns and horses were non-relatable.

Then one day around 2009, local channel 6 in Philly had added a 6.2 digital subchannel, and on a Sunday afternoon, I caught an episode of THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT - and I liked it. So, a year or so later, I bought the Timeless set of both seasons.

I was rather disappointed with the chopped up episodes and wonky color, but watched through most of it.

This thread had given me hope of something better, but now it's probably just more of the same. Sigh....

My experience with that show mirrored yours for much the same reasons. Though I always liked the opening theme, the few times I watched it I'd fall asleep. But as years passed I grew a lot more fond of westerns, though it takes very special qualities for me to add a particular title to my collection. There are ~ 9 currently. This includes Shout!'s Stoney Burke series, created and produced by Leslie (Outer Limits TOS) Stevens and scored by the incomparable Dominic Frontiere. I've tried countless times to entice La La Land, Intrada and other soundtrack labels to release a soundtrack CD boxed set, but no luck so far.

As for the theme of this thread, my only connection to GUNS OF WILL SONNETT are some movies with Walter Brennan. I definitely did not like him, or at least the character he played, in "To Have and Have Not" (1944). But he was excellent in "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955) and perhaps even better in "Blood on the Moon" (1948). Enjoy!

 

[BobO'Link]

I dug out, opened my set, and have watched the entirety of disc 1 (9 episodes plus a bonus video/mini-doc, so it's also a bit overcompressed). I absolutely do not recall watching this series - and based on the open would likely have found something else to do before the episode ever started had I sampled the series. Brennan reads, poorly, a rather mundane poem - something that's always been a turn off for me - which sets up the "action" by providing the back story of the family. I've not checked to see if there's a chapter stop after the open and should as I find it quite grating.

Anyway...

I'm finding it to be somewhat cliche' with uniformly average to below average acting (I'd call Brennan's performance sub-par for him) and just average, at best, dialog/scripting. Directing and editing is also a bit on the lesser side. I'm hoping it picks up a bit as it's just not all that good by the end of that 10th episode.

So far the episodes look uniformly mediocre with a few looking downright bad (10 eps/disc is part of the issue - and the "bad" looking ones look like you'd expect from lesser quality multi-generational PD product) with more than a few shots framed incredibly poorly (don't know if they were really shot that way of if it's due to some generational copy thing - basically more than a few shots with the tops of heads cut off as if the frame's been zoomed in a bit). Sound is OK with generally clean sounding dialog. And there's a 3rd party involved somehow as there's another "distributor" (besides Kingworld who syndicated it) named on screen. If CBS is doing a re-release I'd absolutely hope and believe they'll have a much better looking product than what's on the Timeless set.

 

[BobO'Link]

Video was more consistent with disc 2 with a still softer image (absolutely looks like 2nd generation tape transfers at best). Like with the first disc, there are 9 more episodes and a bonus featurette. Acting improves but scripts are still full of poor dialog which hurts the performances. And direction/editing are the cause of many pacing/performance issues.

While obviously edited for syndication I really didn't notice anything missing that would possibly improve or clarify the story.

Disc 3 has only 8 episodes and a bonus episode of another series. So far, video quality is consistent with the slightly improved look of episodes on disc 2 with audio that's still quite good. So far, the worst looking episodes are on the first disc.

No CC or SDH on any of the discs so far. Considering these are likely from video transfers meant for syndication the lack of CC is a bit surprising.

It would be incredibly good if CBS at least made new transfers from the film and not rely on these older, sub-par, syndication sources. In spite of my issues with acting/scripting/directing/editing I'd absolutely upgrade should that be the case.

 

[Randy Korstick]

If the CBS MOD release does turn out to be the same copies with no additional cleanup done they would still be a tiny bit better than the Timeless release due to less compression. As there would likely be 7 episodes a disc vs. 9 or 10.

 

[Harry-N]

Another annoying thing about the Timeless set is that there are no chapter stops within an episode.

 

[MartinP.]

In the Spring, however, it was absolutely out as it moved to Monday at 7:30pm

A couple TV series episode sources I use show that all* of the series two seasons aired on Friday nights. ???
*All except one. The 49th episode of Season 2 aired Friday, March 21, 1969. The last new episode, the 50th, aired on Tuesday, September 16, 1969.

I wasn't much into westerns, but there were so many on in the '60s that sometimes you watched westerns or you didn't watch anything. I do recall watching this one often enough because, well, before I realized I was gay, I was quite interested in Dack Rambo. Turns out he was gay, too. I never saw the show in color, either. I was interested in the original release, but never got it because they were edited.

It's interesting when you realize that before Walter Brennan became a TV fixture he had won 3 Academy Awards for Supporting Actor!

Wikipedia has this bit of info: In 1970, The Guns of Will Sonnett series creators Dick Carr and Aaron Spelling worked again with Walter Brennan on the western made-for-TV movie sequel The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again, which also starred Fred Astaire. It was written by Carr and produced by Thomas-Spelling Productions.

I never miss a Walter Brennan, Fred Astaire film! Heh!

 

[bmasters9]

Another annoying thing about the Timeless set is that there are no chapter stops within an episode.

View attachment 186599

Why do some releasers feel it necessary to make you watch the whole show straight through, titles included, instead of giving you a choice (Warner Bros. did the same thing with their Gilligan's Island releases)?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Adding chapter stops is an additional stage in disc authoring which costs additional money - reducing the number of menu pages and/or reducing the number of chapters lowers costs. Someone also has to take the time to tell the authoring house exactly where the chapter stops should go, and that takes time to do which adds to the overall budget. It’s an easy item to remove to cut expenses without significantly affecting the overall product - the majority of buyers aren’t going to abstain from purchasing over a lack of chapter stops.