DVD Review: Rawhide (The Fourth Season, Volume 1)

DVD Reviews, Reviews

The doggies are moving once more. After a wait of two years, the latest installment of Rawhide has arrived on DVD. This series dealt with a group of drovers that constantly guided cattle through the wilderness. Gil Favor (Eric Fleming) ran the operation with his scout Pete Nolan (Sheb Wooley), cook Wishbone (Paul Brinegar) and Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood). They were a crack unit as they encountered ranchers, Indians and frontier families. The show allowed Eastwood to slurp up his gig in the Spaghetti Westerns as Rowdy. The Fourth Season, Volume 1 of Rawhide brings more fun from the open range.

“Incident at Rio Salado” doubles up the action on Rowdy. He gets robbed by a revolutionary and meets up with his father. While that should be good news, turns out the guy dumped Rowdy and his mom a while back. Clint gets to start sounding like Clint as he meets the scoundrel father. “Sendoff” brings a mystery as Gil discovers a wrecked wagon and a dozen graves. How did this happen? Gil didn’t cut people too much slack on the trail. Thus he has to hire a bunch of new guys for a cattle drive. The newbies aren’t happy with their jobs. “Lost Tribe” has Cheyenne mess up the cows. Pete wants to deal with this himself since it turns out his father-in-law is the chief. “Inside Man” has Charles Gray hijack the herd. That’s right, the no-neck star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show thinks he can beat Clint Eastwood.

“Black Sheep” gives us cows versus sheep. Richard Basehart (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) won’t let the herd cut through his flock. This leads to a major batch of ugliness including Clint and Basehart throwing down. Basehart also got a career boost through Italy when he made La Strada for Fellini. Speaking of a circus theme movie, “Prairie Elephant” brings the guys across a lost circus. There’s a lot of drama under the big top. Billy Barty (Bugaloos) is part of the performers. “The Little Fishes” gets a bid weird as Burgess Meredith (Rocky) runs shad to California.

“Gentleman’s Gentleman” involves royalty hunting buffalo. What’s interesting is Jay Silverheels playing an Indian since he was Tonto on The Lone Ranger. Twenty-Five Stanta Clauses is the Christmas special. Ed Wynn plays a lost and wore out Santa Claus. “The Captain’s Wife” puts Barbara Stanwyck in charge of a fort when her husband heads out with his men. When the guys drop by for supplies, they are treated as Indians wanting to attack. A few years after this episode, Stanwyck would get her own western on The Big Valley. Shelley Berman proves driving cattle isn’t for amateurs in “Peddler.” He’s doing his best to get a small herd to town so he can collect the cash and head back to his old country. What he really doesn’t count on is George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke.

The Fourth Season, Volume 1 of Rawhide is another exciting batch of tales from the West. There’s plenty of location action as they drive real cows across the screen and not a bunch of CGI creations. It’s always good to get more episodes of a young Clint Eastwood riding high across the plains.

Episodes
“Incident at Rio Salado,” “Sendoff,” “Long Shakedown,” “Judgement at Hondo Seco,” “Lost Tribe,” “Inside Man,” “Black Sheep,” “Prairie Elephant,” “The Little Fishes,” “The Blue Spy,” “Gentleman’s Gentleman,” “Twenty-Five Santa Clauses,” “The Long Count,” “The Captain’s Wife” and “Peddler.”

The transfers appear to be from a broadcast video master and not a HD transfers struck from the 35mm source. It’s rather disappointing since you lose a bit of the exterior details. The audio is Dolby Digital mono. The levels sound find. Nobody gets over powered by the cattle mooing. The episodes are subtitled.

In terms of extras, we have Previews provided for five episodes (Clint Eastwood does the narration on a few) and four minutes of Sponsor Spots which are merely pictures of the products that brought you the episode. There’s no Clint telling us about the joy of Bufferin after a long day with the cattle.

Rawhide: The Fourth Season, Volume 1 is another 15 episodes about men, cattle and the untamed frontier. Clint Eastwood continues to captivate as one of the hired hands. The only disappointment is the picture quality isn’t quite up to the level of the previous releases. It still looks better than the prints running on ME-TV.

CBS DVD presents Rawhide: The Fourth Season, Volume 1. Starring: Eric Fleming, Sheb Wooley, Paul Brinegar and Clint Eastwood. Boxset Contents: 15 episodes on 4 DVDs. Released on DVD: June 7, 2011. Available at Amazon.com.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.