Adventures of Jim Bowie Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[silverking]

According to their website Critics Choice have scheduled this for release on on Nov 14.

It appears to be in the same style as their releases of Sergeant Preston & Hopalong Cassidy, so hopefully will b better than the PD copies circulating.

 

[Bob Hug]

Wow . . . another nice surprise from Critics Choice . . . and another one that I wouldn't have expected because of the various public domain releases circulating, including a few from CC. The only downside that I see on this is that all of the circulating PD episodes of this show are from the first season so, for example, if you bought VCI's collection of 13 season 1 episodes, you'll already have a third of the season one episodes. Still, this is a good series and, assuming that the transfers improve on the PD releases, I'm going to get this one. Incidentally, DeepDiscountDVD is showing this for $29.96. Depending on whether DDD has it's semi-annual 20%-off sale and the timing of such, it may be possible to get this for about $24.00. Thanks for the info., silverking.

 

[Michael Alden]

I've spoken to the people who put this together and it is coming directly from the 35mm masters so the quality will be outstanding, far better than anything that's come out before from beat up 16mm prints. Critics Choice is going to be a player in the game from now on, especially with Real McCoys coming soon.

 

[Bert Greene]

This is a nice bit of news (and most welcome, considering the relative lack of it lately in the arena of 'vintage' fare). I never did get around to purchasing any of the p.d. releases of "Jim Bowie," as I already had a fair number of episodes on tape, which I recorded off of the old Nostalgia Network in the late-80s (back when they were running a number of oldies like "Boston Blackie," "Waterfront," "Dr. Christian" and such). If this new set comes from the masters, it will definately be a must-buy. It's perhaps not the most earth-shattering series ever, but I found it pleasant enough. And, as a native Louisianan, I suppose I got a kick out of the name-dropping of various little Lousiana towns I knew pretty well.

 

[Bob Hug]

Yep, for vintage/classic tv fans, thank goodness that an independent company like Critics Choice is taking a chance on these older shows . . . and their track record, to date, is mostly good. You just know that none of the majors would ever take a chance on the shows that Critics Choice is releasing.

 

[Bob Gu]

Great News! We might think of Critic's Choice as a small-time company, but they are probably the largest mail order video retailer outside the internet, and the majority of items in their paper catalog, clearly are aimed at the classics collector. So the collectors who get the CC catalog may be more aware of these TV classics coming from CC than some of the poorly advertised, more famous titles coming from the studios.

BIG VALLEY producer, Louis F.Edelman produced the ADVENTURES OF JIM BOWIE and THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF WYATT EARP at Desilu for ABC. Both BOWIE and EARP had the Ken Darby Singers providing the vocal musical background instead of the usual orchestra.

JIM BOWIE had 76 episodes/ two, 38 episode, seasons. Do we know who owns it now?

It's fun to speculate that CC might have access to the the Desilu library. WHIRLYBIRDS, anyone?

 

[Michael Alden]

SFM Entertainment controls the Edelman estate as well as the Thomas estate. Whirlybirds, unfortunately, is part of Paramount/Viacom, so no chance of it ever seeing the light of day.

 

[Gary OS]

Ok, this is some nice news. I'll be picking this set up for sure. With the lack of classic announcements lately, it's good to have a pick-me-up every so often. And this qualifies as such for me.

Gary "this wasn't a bad show at all, based on my viewing of the Alpha releases" O.

 

[Bob Gu]

That's too bad about WHIRLYBIRDS. So it's SFM Entertainment and the Thomas/Edelman estates working with Critic's Choice to give us THE REAL McCOYS and BOWIE.

In viewing the VCI Bowie set, I notice that, the action scenes; riding,shooting, and fistfighting are done with the usual 50's dash. But the actual knife fights are very static and slowed down to make them less violent, so as not to scare us kiddies back then.

 

[docdoowop]

Boy, I hope this will be discounted heavily....even for a transfer improvement over the public domain discs. But thanks to CCV for keeping at it. Now, how about Yancy Derringer?

 

[Michael Alden]

Looks like this has been pushed back to Dec. 12th. BTW, is this a DDD exclusive? I don't see an Amazon listing.

 

[Gary OS]

I don't know why it's that way, but I have noticed with the season sets (Bowie, Sgt. Preston, etc.) that CCV's dvds are usually only available through Deep Discount DVD or their own site. I never see Amazon, Overstock, or the other retailers carry them.

Gary "waiting anxiously for this set to ship" O.

 

[Bob Gu]

Amazon does carry the Critic's Choice titles: Sgt Preston: S1 & 2, Dangerous Assignment: Set 1 & Set 2, and Hopalong Cassidy: S1 & S2. Jim Bowie is probably exclusive to CC and deepdiscount for now. Amazon started carrying Sgt Preston S1 about five months after it was originally released by CC. They didn't wait that long for Preston S2 or the Hopalong Cassidy seasons.

 

[silverking]

I think Deep Discount own Critics Choice or hve some sort of stake in them.

 

[Bob Gu]

Right, silverking, on the DDD/CC connection, although some of their customer service people don't know it. DDD carries all the CC releases. DDD also carries all the Alpha public domain titles except for the titles that Critic's Choice duplicates.

THE ADVENTURES OF JIM BOWIE: S1 release has been pushed back to 1/16/07, along with the HOPALONG CASSIDY MOVIE COLLECTION, a licensed edition of the ten Hoppy feature movies that have not been released thru Image and Platinum. I wonder if Critic's Choice has trouble getting production time with the DVD manufacturers? I was hoping to hear of Sergeant Preston S3 by now.

 

[Bert Greene]

Well, darn. I was hoping "Bowie" would arrive in my mailbox this week. This means I'll probably need to venture out and get something else to thwart my ever-declining tv-dvd stockpile. I've been quite pleased with the quality of these new 'officially liscensed' Critics Choice releases, like "Sgt. Preston," "Dangerous Assignment" and "Hopalong Cassidy."

Their individual p.d. releases are still in the typical so-so category, and often vary wildly in quality (their "Sky King" v.2 was atrocious, but "Ozzie & Harriet" v.2 was quite excellent). The latest one I got was their relatively recent "Michael Shayne" release, and it was okay, if unexceptional, in quality. One amusing thing I noted on the second "Michael Shayne" episode (from the sole 1960-61 season) is that the familiar "Beverly Hillbillies" mansion was utilized in a scene. Amusing to see it presented in this entirely different context, before it became the well-known backdrop that it was.

 

[Bob Gu]

Bert,not a real place, like the Hillbillies mansion,but the standing street set I always get a kick out of spotting is the one that has the Mayberry Courthouse. It can be seen in The Untouchables, Mission Impossible, and maybe Jim Bowie too.

For anybody that has not preordered The Adventures Of Jim Bowie, it's on the way, I received my shipping confirmation from deepdiscount today.(Along with shipping confirmation of the Hopalong Cassidy Movie Collection too. With Critic's Choice's releases of the two seasons of Hopalong Cassidy and this 10 movie collection, Hopalong Cassidy is the first of the big three,(Roy Rogers,Gene Autry,and Hoppy), to have his entire film library out in licenced DVD editions. (The other 56 Hoppy features were released by Image and Platinum.)

 

[silverking]

That's good news Bob, perhaps you can let us know what the quality is like when you receive it.

Re the big 3 westerners, Gene Autry films are regularly being released by Image in beautifuly remastered editions. They did put out a couple of volumes of the TV series a few years back, two more were scheduled but never released. I emailed the Gene Autry website to enquire why.They replied that they were now considering releasing the series ,including the colour episodes, in season box sets to tie in with the Autry 100th anniversary.
There are a lot of Rogers films & TV shows in PD but the quality is often atrocious.

 

[Gary OS]

Got my shipping confirmation too. Same place. It usually takes DDD about 10 days to get anything to me, but I'm looking forward to this one.

Gary "hoping these prints are as solid as previous CC releases" O.

 

[Bob Gu]

I did not realize that some episodes of Gene Autry's TV show were in color. I knew some of his features were in sepiatone, but their DVD releases have been in B&W.(Oddly the menu film clips on these discs are sepiatoned.) I have read that Lion's Gate is trying to aquire Image. Considering Lion's Gate's inactivity with the Republic catalog, that might be bad for Autry Inc.-owned releases continuing with Image.

There's a Jim Bowie-Hopalong Cassidy connection with the Ken Darby Singers. When they were called the Kings Men, they were in some of the Hoppy movies. Usually, as singing Bar-20 riders, but in one film "Stagecoach Wars", they were singing hold-up men.

I notice deepdiscount usually ships my orders on Tuesdays, I expect to get Jim Bowie by release date, if nothing goes wrong. Once a single back-ordered item reached me four days after the e-mail,but that's usual.