Wagon Train rollin' in on October 7th (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Bowie]

Well ... I'm pretty sure any "painstaking restoring & remastering" was done by Universal, not by Timeless. I was told that Timeless was going to access Uni's tape masters on the color season of Wagon Train (which has been syndicated recently in Canada) for this release, which is what they did with Laredo. Hopefully they'll look pretty good, especially since they'll only have 2 1/2 hours of content per disc, instead of five hours, which resulted in what I thought was ruinous compression on the Laredo sets.

I had also heard that Timeless was going to take a different & more ambitious approach to the earlier Wagon Train seasons, and I'm at a loss to explain why this has changed (the vault fire could be the culprit, I guess). I'm not clear on whether the John McIntyre-era episodes will be sourced from 16mm prints or tape, but I'd guess the former.

 

[Charles H]

WILL THERE BE A CROSS-OVER OF EPISODES BETWEEN THE 'GOING WEST' COLLECTION AND THE MEGA-SET?

 

[michael_ks]

That's an interesting question. I would suspect not as I understand that the video quality is significantly different between the two sets.

 

[Gary OS]

Ok, I just got the episode list for the giant "WAGON TRAIN: The Color Season" set that's coming in November.


Disc 1 (all color)

1. The Molly Kincaid Story
2. The Fort Pierce Story
3. The Gus Morgan Story


Disc 2 (all color)

1. The Widow O’Rourke Story
2. The Robert Harrison Clarke Story
3. The Myra Marshall Story


Disc 3 (all color)

1. The Sam Spicer Story
2. The Sam Pulaski Story
3. The Eli Bancroft Story


Disc 4 (all color)

1. The Kitty Pryor Story
2. The Sandra Cummings Story
3. The Bleecker Story


Disc 5 (all color)

1. The Story of Cain
2. The Cassie Vance Story
3. The Fenton Canaby Story


Disc 6 (all color)

1. The Michael Malone Story
2. The Jed Whitmore Story
3. The Geneva Balfour Story


Disc 7 (all color)

1. The Kate Crawley Story
2. The Grover Allen Story
3. The Andrew Elliot Story


Disc 8 (all color)

1. The Melanie Craig Story
2. The Pearlie Garnet Story
3. The Trace McCloud Story


Disc 9 (all color)

1. The Duncan McIvor Story
2. The Ben Engel Story
3. The Whipping


Disc 10 (all color)

1. The Santiago Quesada Story
2. The Stark Bluff Story
3. The Link Cheney Story


Disc 11 (all color)

1. The Zebedee Titus Story
2. The Last Circle Up


Disc 12 (all B&W)

1. The Clara Beauchamp Story
2. The Zeke Thomas Story
3. The Cliff Grundy Story
4. A Man Called Horse


Disc 13 (all B&W)

1. The Old Man Charvanaugh Story
2. The Kitty Angel Story
3. Chuck Wooster, Wagonmaster


Disc 14 (all B&W)

1. The Larry Hanify Story
2. The Patience Miller Story
3. The Duke Shannon Story
4. Clyde


Disc 15 (all B&W)

1. The Mavis Grant Story
2. The Sam Darland Story
3. Little Girl Lost
4. The Katy Piper Story


Disc 16 Special Bonus Disc:

Exclusive interviews with Wagon Train stars, Robert Fuller (Cooper Smith) and Denny Scott Miller (Duke Shannon)


I do wish we would have gotten the Lou Costello episode from Season 2, but it's not here. Oh well, it's still a great looking set that doesn't duplicate the other smaller set coming in October!


Gary "gotta say it again - my wallet is going to be hurting come this Christmas" O.

 

[Stephen Bowie]

Well, that's strange to say the least ... so this is more accurately a "Wagon Train: The Color Season Plus a Random Assortment of Other Episodes" box? I wouldn't complain, except that it implies this might be everything we get from Timeless on this series. And, with three 75+ minute color episodes per disc, I'll bet overcompression will be an issue.

I'm reluctant to say anything too negative about Timeless, given that they're filling a niche no one else would, but there's a persistent amateurishness at work there that keeps some of their releases from being as good as they easily could be.

Next up: The "Whatever 16mm TV Prints Came in Over the Transom This Fall" collection.

 

[silverking]

The additional episodes on the colour set appear to be mainly the same ones as Columbia House released on video a few years ago. The Lou Costello episode was included in those so might still appear down the line.

 

[michael_ks]

Thanks for posting the titles for the B/W episodes, Gary. Here is some additional information, cut and pasted from the Wagon Train site I mentioned in a previous post. The words 'no notable guests' are mine and perhaps should read 'I don't recognize anyone here'. Around 9-10 Ward Bond episodes, presumably.

disc 12

1–13 (Nina Foch – A good Robert Horton episode)

1-11 (Gary Merrill, Janice Rule)

1-15 (Dan Druyea, Russell Johnson - A great Robert Horton episode which further develops the character)

1-26 (Ralph Meeker, Michael Pate, Celia Lovsky - In 1970, this story was adapted into the movie, A Man Called Horse, starring Richard Harris. Celia Lovsky played Vulcan T'Pau in Star Trek - the woman who officiates at Spocks "wedding" in Amok Time.


disc 13

2-20 (No notable guests - A great Robert Horton episode)

2-14 (Ann Baxter, Abel Fernandez)

2-33 (Harry Carey, Jr. – A delightful episode, especially for Frank McGrath fans)

(episode 4 missing?)


disc 14

3-17 (Tommy Sands – A strong Robert Horton episode)

4-16 (Rhonda Fleming, Michael Ansara, Morgan Woodward)

4-30 (No notable guests – this episode introduces the character of Duke Shannon [Denny Miller])

5-13 (No notable guests – this episode was written by Gene L. Coon [one of Star Trek’s best writers])


disc 15

6-6 (Ann Sheridan, Parley Baer)

6-15 (Art Linkletter, Nancy Reagan, X Brands, Bill Mumy)

8-12 (John Doucette) [A perennial favorite of Bob Hug and this writer]

8-23 (no notable actors – last episode shown when series was in rerun)

 

[Bob Gu]

"No notable actors".....ouch!

For those of you who have seen Wagon Train recently, do they use a lot of stock footage from other westerns that featured wagon trains?

I watched the show as a kid and remember watching it in color on a relative's color set one year and then B&W the next year. I thought they must be reruns.

 

[Bob Hug]

Jim Rosin, who has written books about "Route 66" and "Naked City" has released a book on "Wagon Train" that's written in the same style as his previous books . . . interviews with surviving cast and crew members tell the story and there are episode synopses. An author signed copy is available at Oldies.com details here:

Wagon Train: The Television Series [Author-Signed Edition] - Books by James Rosin - Autumn Road Company : OLDIES.com

 

[Garysb]

I saw them at Costco today for $19.99 each. Not exclusive to Sam's Club. Each set is packaged in a gold box with a cast picture on the front. If I remember correctly there were 15 episodes in each set. The sets were called the Best of Laredo, Wagon Train, Guns of Will Sonnet etc. whatever show and they were from Timeless.

 

[DeWilson]

I wonder if they are throwing in the B&W episodes in the color box to give the box value and balance the production costs.

 

[michael_ks]

Thanks for discovering that, Bob! And I had forgotten about the "Naked City" book so that makes two titles to pick up.

 

[Bob Hug]

Rosin uses the same format for the "Naked City" and "Wagon Train" books that he used for "Route 66" . . . . . some narrative from cast and crew members to tell the story of each series, a photo gallery, and then episode synopses. There are plenty of recollections from the likes of Robert Horton, Robert Fuller, and Denny Miller, among others, in the "Wagon Train" book.

 

[silverking]

I have the Wagon Train book & whilst it is adequate, for me it lacked depth. The episode guide which takes up half the book appears to have been put together from old sypnosis guides from TV guides.

 

[michael_ks]

from...? (internet sites, I gather?) I suspect that the "Wagon Train" guide has about as many pages as the other two Rosin books and seeing how the show lasted twice as long as the other two series, I can understand your thinking that the book lacks depth.

 

[silverking]

Oh dear, half my post seems to have got lost.

Thank you for finishing it for me Michael. Actually I was going to say taken from old TV Guides, but some of the internet guides are equally dubious.

I haven't seen his other two books but based on this one I doubt I am missing much.

I appreciate that writing about a 40 year old series presents problems, particularly when many of the people involved are no longer with us, however if you compare this with similar books such as Sue Kesler's 'Wild Wild West'
Robertsons 'Maverick' , the 'Virginian' book & the monumental 'Gunsmoke' work by Barrabas , or the 'Have Gun Will Travel' volume Wagon Train comes across as a something of a 'cut & paste' job.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Any chance Timeless might get the rights to do this same treatment for The Virginian? There's a 90-minute show that should, at least, have a best of. Are there any episodes or releases out there on The Virginian? I remember watching Wagon Train and was a big Charlie fan, but I would love to see a similar release for Trampas and the gang at Shiloh.

 

[Bob Hug]

Well, the good news is that "The Virginian" was a Revue/Universal series and Timeless Media does have licensing relationships with NBC Universal for a number of vintage TV series. However, Timeless gets most of its prints from collectors and other sources, so it depends on what prints are out there and in what condition they exist and if it's economically feasible for Timeless to obtain the prints.

 

[Stephen Bowie]

Universal should have (or had, before the fire) tape masters for the early seasons of The Virginian.

I've only seen Rosin's "Route 66" book but unfortunately I have to agree that it adds little to the scholarship on that series, even with the participation of Maharis and other cast & crew. It is possible to do copious histories of programs that old (especially shows whose production circumstances were as complex as those three), but you have to know how to do it.

 

[Dan McW]

Was Kesler's book the one that credited an editor/proofreader on the front cover? That one seemed to be a decent book on the show, but it had more typos than any book I've ever seen.

Supposedly, Wagon Train and The Virginian are coming to the Westerns channel schedule someday, although that was announced in January, pre-fire.

I'll purchase both of these sets if the episodes are complete, but I notice that the episode "The Christopher Hale Story" is still MIA. That's the one that introduces the John McIntire character and co-stars Lee Marvin and L.Q. Jones. It hasn't been part of recent syndication packages (although that's true of many Wagon Train episodes), and it doesn't seem to circulate among collectors.