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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clint Eastwood is the real star of this series, July 18 2007
For all those Clint Eastwood fans out there! It's amazing that he was so 'craggy' even when he was 'just a kid!' This is a great show to watch, even after all these years. They tackled some touchy issues, including a very sympathetic view of the plains Indians (at least sympathetic for the day). The intro evolves over the course of the series to show different scenes, but the music & song remain unchanged. Rowdy Yates (Eastwood) is excellent in his role, a naive young man with a good heart and sense of right and wrong, while still being willing to get 'talked into things' on occasion. All the regular characters are stereotypical, but played out well by the actors. The sound stage sets are well dressed and are quite convincing. The outdoor scenes really do make you suspend your disbelief and let you see into the hardships of the people who lived and work along the trail that these cowhands traveled. All the central actors are excellent horseman &/or ride well at least (of course, the horses are actors too). And, the stuntwork is well done and 'believable.'
Very enjoyable for 8 year-olds and older. (A bit too much for those toddlers and very young kiddies to grasp or appreciate.) All in all, a very collectible series. Can hardly wait for the second half of season two to be issued.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Head 'em up, and Move 'em out again!, Oct 12 2006
Ah, teeny lass time! When I came to visit my cousins they were always on about Mr. Favor. They would drag out the cap-pistols and stick horses and play Rawhide. No one wanted be Rowdy Yates. They always forced my younger brother David to play Rowdy and he'd cry. Everyone wanted to be Mr. Favor. Handsome, sexy voiced Eric Fleming was a star on the rise. We saw him in various Sci-Fi flicks in the 50s like that horrid thing with Zaa-Zaa as Queen of Outer Space, and some nifty who dun its, but it was as Ms. Favor he was rising to the top. Hard to recall gravelly-voiced Eastwood was considered a wimp!
Favor was filming a flick in the Amazon during summer break and drowned. Hollywood lost a rising star and Rawhide lost Mr. Favor, dooming the series. It lumbered on with Rowdy taking over as trail boss for a time, only the series lack the force without the dominating presence of Fleming. It would be curious if we could turn back time and alter events--one wonders if Eastwood would have finally come out of Fleming's shadow and become the superstar he did had Fleming not died.
The series ran for 8 years, and holds up well. There were so many westerns during this period, and when you go back to view them, they are sadly quite dated. NOT Rawhide. The strength of the acting, the vision of the producers and directors, kept Rawhide popular back then, but also gives you stories which stands the test of time. Rawhide dates like a fine wine.
You also have the treat of see fading stars and up and coming stars in the stories.
It just doesn't get any better than this.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
"Rawhide ... Complete First Season ... Paramount Pictures (2006)", Jan 2 2009
CBS Television and Paramount Pictures presents "RAWHIDE: THE FIRST SEASON" (9 January 1959 - 25 September 1959) (1180 mins/In Glorious Black & White) (digitally remastered in Dolby) -- Rawhide was a television western series that aired on the U.S. network CBS from 1959 to 1966. The show starred Eric Fleming and launched the career of Clint Eastwood --- The series ran for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 episodes, all filmed and broadcast in black and white --- It was produced and sometimes directed by Charles Marquis Warren who also produced early episodes of Gunsmoke --- Warren based Rawhide on the movie Cattle Empire that he directed in 1958 and for which Endre Bohem was a screenwriter and Paul Brinegar, Steve Raines and Rocky Shahan were actors; all also worked in Rawhide --- Its premiere episode reached the top 20 in the Nielsen Ratings. It rose steadily in popularity until, towards the end of the series run, it was one of America's top ten shows --- Rawhide was the fourth longest-running American TV western, beaten only by nine years of The Virginian and Wagon Train, fourteen years of Bonanza, and twenty years of Gunsmoke.
The episode would be introduced, usually by some words from Gil Favor but sometimes by others --- The typical Rawhide story involved drovers, portrayed by Eric Fleming (Trail Boss Gil Favor) and Clint Eastwood (ramrod Rowdy Yates), coming upon people on the trail and getting drawn into solving whatever problem they presented or were confronting --- Some of the stories were obviously easier in production terms but the peak form of the show was convincing and naturalistic, and sometimes brutal. Its situations could range from parched plains to anthrax, ghostly riders to wolves, cattle raiding, bandits, murderers, and so forth --- A problem on such drives was the constant need for water, and the scout spent much of his time looking for it, sometimes finding water holes, even rivers had dried up - In some ways it was similar to the TV series Wagon Train that debuted in 1957.
Of all the western characters on TV, these were the only real cowboys, because they drove cows. There were also sheep boys who drove sheep, pig boys who looked after pigs, etc. The name cowboys became a generic name in western films and TV series --- The theme song's lyrics were written by Ned Washington in 1958. It was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin and sung by pop singer Frankie Laine. The theme song became very popular --- It was covered several times and parts of the song also appear in more recent movies like The Blues Brothers and Shrek.-- (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
List of Season, Episode, Title and Original Air Date:
Season 1, Episode 1: Incident of the Tumbleweed (guest stars Terry Moore & Tom Conway) Original Air Date--9 January 1959
Season 1, Episode 2: Incident at Alabaster Plain (guest stars Martin Balsam & Troy Donahue) Original Air Date--16 January 1959
Season 1, Episode 3: Incident with an Executioner (guest stars James Drury) Original Air Date--23 January 1959
Season 1, Episode 4: Incident of the Widowed Dove (guest stars Sally Forrest & Jay C. Flippen) Original Air Date--30 January 1959
Season 1, Episode 5: Incident on the Edge of Madness (guest stars Lon Chaney Jr. & Marie Windsor) Original Air Date--6 February 1959
Season 1, Episode 6: Incident of the Power and the Plow (guest stars Brian Donlevy) Original Air Date--13 February 1959
Season 1, Episode 7: Incident at Barker Springs (guest stars June Lockhart & DeForest Kelley) Original Air Date--20 February 1959
Season 1, Episode 8: Incident West of Lano (guest stars Martha Hyer)
Original Air Date--27 February 1959
Season 1, Episode 9: Incident of the Town in Terror (guest stars Margaret O'Brien) Original Air Date--6 March 1959
Season 1, Episode 10: Incident of the Golden Calf (guest stars Macdonald Carey) Original Air Date--13 March 1959
Season 1, Episode 11: Incident of the Coyote Weed
Original Air Date--20 March 1959
Season 1, Episode 12: Incident of the Chubasco (guest stars George Brent, John Ericson & Noah Beery Jr) Original Air Date--3 April 1959
Season 1, Episode 13: Incident of the Curious Street (guest stars Mercedes McCambridge) Original Air Date--10 April 1959
Season 1, Episode 14: Incident of the Dog Days (guest stars R.G. Armstrong) Original Air Date--17 April 1959
Season 1, Episode 15: Incident of the Calico Gun (guest stars Jack Lord)
Original Air Date--24 April 1959
Season 1, Episode 16: Incident of the Misplaced Indians (guest stars Kim Hunter & Lyle Talbot) Original Air Date--1 May 1959
Season 1, Episode 17: Incident of Fear in the Streets (guest stars Gary Merrill & Bob Steele) Original Air Date--8 May 1959
Season 1, Episode 18: Incident Below the Brazos (guest stars Leslie Nielsen & Martin Landau) Original Air Date--15 May 1959
Season 1, Episode 19: Incident of the Dry Drive (guest stars Victor Jory)
Original Air Date--22 May 1959
Season 1, Episode 20: Incident of the Judas Trap (guest stars Nina Foch, Gerald Mohr & Phyllis Coates) Original Air Date--5 June 1959
Season 1, Episode 21: Incident in No Man's Land (guest stars Brian Keith, Reed Hadley & Mary Beth Hughes) Original Air Date--12 June 1959
Season 1, Episode 22: Incident of a Burst of Evil (guest stars Elisha Cook Jr, Linda Cristal & H.M. Wynant) Original Air Date--26 June 1959
Season 2, Episode 2: Incident of the Roman Candles (guest stars Beverly Garland & Will Wright) Original Air Date--25 September 1959
BIOS:
1. Eric Fleming (aka: Edward Heddy)
Date of Birth:: 4 July 1925 - Santa Paula, California
Date of Death: 28 September 1966 - Tingo Maria area, Peru (drowned)
2. Clint Eastwood
Date of Birth: 31 May 1930 - San Francisco, California
Date of Death: Still Living
Great job by Paramount Pictures and their staff for releasing this long awaited edition with collectible Seasons with unforgettable episodes --- looking forward to more of the same from the rousing CBS Television vintage era --- order your copy now from Amazon their Western Classics -- all my heroes have been cowboys!
Total Time: 1180 mins on DVD ~ Paramount Pictures ~ (07/25/2006)
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DVD ~ Eric Fleming
DVD ~ James Arness
DVD ~ Steve McQueen
DVD ~ Eric Fleming
DVD ~ Pernell Roberts
